Within an instant of placing my hand upon the flying platform's strange handlebars, it was up into the air. The thing paused, rotated one-hundred and eighty degrees, then shot off at a velocity that almost ripped my fingers from their sockets. Over the choppy sea, we flew, higher and higher. Up and up in a graceful, arcing ascent we rose, then sped off into the endless horizon.
I soon grew bored with staring off into an unknown, unchanging vista, so risked a tricky manoeuvre. The platform, level as it was, seemed sturdy enough for a shuffled passage to Sunyin. I saw no point remaining at the steering column for I contributed nothing to the ship's control. So, I dropped to my knees and with a degree of trepidation did just that.
Sunyin rested upon the low rail that ran around the back of the machine. There, I took my place in silence beside him. He looked peaceful in his own way; unwell, but peaceful. The blood had ceased running from his wounds and instead formed miniature pools of red ice. Blood: it had so much to answer for. I sat there, the wind streaming through my hair, freshest of fresh air assailing my senses, and thought back to she who I'd abandoned. I hoped Linka fared better than I. Serena had appeared sincere, but I'd felt compelled to hurry from Hvit. As a rule, I preferred time to think things through. My flight was most unlike me. I sat and stewed over my questionable decision making amidst visions of emeralds and long raven hair.
I stood by the Rhine in gleaming light. The sun shone brighter than any star, and I felt warm, or what I imagined warmth to be like. I liked it. I'd even have said it made me happy. Shading my eyes from the celestial orb above, I watched on as Linka picked pretty flowers from the riverbank. She seemed happy, too. Perhaps, it was real? Perhaps, not? For the crystal, clear waters that ushered passed in gurgling glory began to thicken and transform. The Rhine slowed almost to a stop as its waters darkened from clear, to pink, to crimson, then black. The sun strayed behind a cloud that dripped ruby rain, and I felt a dread upon me. I could not move as the waters churned, could not react, as two female forms rose from the depths. Twinned they were in evil, one turning eyes of ruby upon me, the other obsidian black. My voice deserted me as I tried to shout to my love, to warn her. But without words, she heard nothing. They tore her apart from the throat down. Her unblinking eyes were the last to go. I could do nothing; feel nothing; hear nothing, as the sky exploded and what was promised came to pass. The end laid heavy on my soulless shell as all faded to dust.
“Sir, are you well?”
My eyes flicked open to the misted globes of Sunyin. He looked at me, or through me, as though I was a ghost? His face reflected the panic of my dream, as the words from his blue lips sought to reassure.
“Jean, not, sir.”
“Ah, yes, you said. My apologies, Jean.”
“No need.” I dismissed his words with a waved hand.
“You were screaming, Jean. I was worried about you.”
“I am fine, old friend. Nothing more than a bad dream.”
“You dream like that often?”
“I don't dream at all, as a rule. Too busy trying to escape my little slice of death.”
“You seek to escape death?” he asked, sitting back down beside me.
“I seek to escape the feeling of death.”
“But, you are alive?”
“Am I, old man?”
“Do you not wake, live, feel love?”
“I sometimes think I do,” I said more to myself than my inquisitor.
“Then you are alive.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said. “But I'll feel more alive when we get to our destination. Which I must say,” I added, “looks considerably closer, wherever it is?”
“Yes, it is good to see soil again, even if it is not as rich in life as it should be.”
I was clueless as to how Sunyin knew we no longer flew over the Arctic waters but instead a vast expanse of tundra? However, experience had taught me not to doubt my companion's observational skills despite his infirmities.
“I think it's about time you and I had a chat, old monk.” I climbed to my feet, arched my back in a raking stretch, then grabbed for the rail before the turbulence propelled me overboard.
“I would be glad to,” he replied with a smile.
“Well, how did you escape the Marquis is the one that first springs to mind?”
“I do not know this Marquis of whom you speak.”
“Hmm, then, how did you find me?”
“I do not remember.”
“Not going great, is it?”
“Not really,” he agreed.
“Is there anything you do remember?”
“I don't even remember you,” he said. “Only that I should find you. Do you understand what I am trying to say?” he asked with a puzzled expression.
“I could lie if it made you feel better.”
“Lying is not a good trait.”
“At least you remember that,” I said.
“I remember many things. Just not the answers to your questions.”
“Then how did you find me?”
“I can only presume it fate.”
“I do not believe in fate.”
“But I do, Jean.”
“How can you be sure?” I thought I had him there, but Sunyin, as always, had an answer.
“Faith, Jean. I found myself on this machine. Somebody had put me here for a reason. I now know that reason was you. I do not question, only follow my preordained path.”
“I have no preordained path, though I feel the draw of the Rhineland.”
“Is that where we are headed?”
“I don't know!” I laughed out loud. “I hope so. I think so.”
“How can you be so sure?” the old man pressed.
“Hmm,” I mused. “I suspect it's fate.”
“Then our conversation has come full circle, my friend, and the Rhineland is undoubtedly our destination.”
I huffed a response, but was already investigating the landscape we sped over. There was no way to describe it other than dead. It didn't even contain the memory of life. Barren dirt and rock, punctuated by a slight but ever increasing vista of twisted, stilted trees, swept before us. On and on the same view until we shot out over endless water and I realised we had crossed the ancient Scandinavian continent and out over the sluggish remains of the Baltic Sea.
The Baltics weren't high on my list of places to visit. In fact, I prayed we'd not stray too close to Duke Gorgon's domain. If I could've wrenched the controls from the floor and aimed us in another direction, I would have.
I had issues with all of the Hierarchy, but none more so than Gorgon. He was ever bad tempered. He and Chantelle's new husband made quite the pair. Gorgon and Vladivar were equal in their obnoxiousness and shared hatreds. Both held a grudge against the world and more so each other. However, Gorgon had some redeeming principles; Vladivar had none. Duke Gorgon's non-appearance at his enemy's wedding suggested knowledge of his counterpart's machinations. He knew things. However, I'd be the last person he'd share them with. It would've been ill-advised to venture there, so I crossed more than just my fingers that we weren't.
Sunyin had nodded back off to sleep. The exertions of his interrogation had been too much in his frail state. I rested his head back on the makeshift pillow and stared into the distance as the Rhineland's crumbling coast came into view. The distant, gaping hole that had once been the River Elbe's outpouring looked somewhat pitiful with nothing but brown sludge emanating from its maw. A lifetime ago, the boy I was once stood on those cliffs with his parents and marvelled at such an expanse of water. On reflection, it was probably those crumbling cliffs that had created my phobia. I'd almost slid over their edge and into those particularly turgid waters, my father catching my hand as my mother screamed. A memory best forgotten.
We were soon back over more familiar territory although hanging too close to the East for my liking. I put up with it for a while before determining to adjust our trajectory. So, I mounted the high stool that stood before the handleb
ar controls and tried to turn them. Merryweather had manipulated the ship to some extent, so I saw no reason why I couldn't manage it if that idiot had. But much to my chagrin the thing wouldn't budge an inch, and we hurtled on in an almost arrow-straight line. Only when the amalgamation that was the Alp/Himalay massif rose into view did the device alter its bearing. Veering towards France, unfortunately, the thing made a beeline for that vascular river that was the amended Danube. I remembered my parents' tales of how the Eternal engineers had carved out a second exit to the northern coasts so the river might flow in either direction to both the Baltic and Black seas as the occasion demanded. All very unnecessary in my opinion but unsurprising with there being so little else to do. Like a serpent of hellish proportions, the blood-red waters of the leviathan cut through my immediate grey horizon. The craft, as though sensing its snaking trail, then cut a sharp south-east line and made an approximate navigation of the thing. From such a height, one appreciated the sorry state of my homelands: I duly averted my eyes. I focused, instead, on the line of the mountains and their snow-crested summits. But the white caps only reminded me of what I'd left behind. Those tiny tips of Arctic dreams made me miss my darling all the more, and no matter how hard I tried to think of something else, I failed.
Lost in my moroseness, we shot in between a line of two separate sets of peaks and along a winding, steep-sided valley. The area looked vaguely familiar although I had never seen it from such an angle. In the past, I'd paid little attention to my whereabouts, after all, I'd spent most of my time wishing I wasn't amongst them.
We followed that crease in the planet whipping occasionally from one side of it to the other, adjustments made for no apparent reason other than to annoy me, before the flying platform decelerated to a gentle jog. I found it a tad surprising as I'd convinced myself we were to veer off toward the Comte de Burgundy's palace. Instead, we rounded a bend in the mountains to be confronted by the oncoming blemish I recognised at once as the Marquis de Rhineland's ivory palace. By choice, I'd have avoided that most inhospitable of places. If not for Sunyin's enthusiastic intervention, I still might have.
“Look, Jean, isn't it beautiful,” he said pointing into the distance.
At first, I thought him senile. Nobody could think that appalling construction beautiful, but I followed the line of his arm and realised he meant the rising sun: I had forgotten the course of time still moved. The constant sameness of the Arctic darkness that lingered beyond Hvit's limits had thrown my usual astuteness out. I would have stern words with myself later.
“I'll admit to something, Sunyin, if it was not for the fact we were charging into yet another perilous situation, I would agree.” And I meant it as the burning outline of that molten orb illuminated both mountaintop and palace in a darker shade of blood.
“I don't think I've ever seen the sun before?” the old monk chuckled.
“Quite the reverse, my forgetful friend, you have seen the sun many times, if not with your eyes, whilst for me, this is still rather unique.”
“You'd have thought I'd have remembered such a beautiful occurrence.”
“Could be the bang to your head, or that you've forgotten you're blind.” I winked, then realised it wasted. “Right now, I think the palace should be our main concern. Do you recognise this as your starting point?”
“I do not. I am sorry, Jean, I know it is not what you wish to hear,” Sunyin responded, his face downcast.
“Never fear, old friend, but if this confounded contraption should alight, you would do well to stay behind me.”
“As you wish,” he agreed with a sage nod of his bald head.
The Marquis' palace was undoubtedly our destination as the craft slowed almost to a standstill, took a leisurely once around the place, then came to a hovering stop between it and the valley we'd just navigated.
“At least we have the daytime on our side, Sunyin. No Eternal would stray into sunlight.”
I said it more in hope than expectation.
“Why?” asked the monk, as I surveyed the palace's upper windows for any sign of life.
“They would think it their death, as once did I.”
“Then, what is he doing?”
I must have looked very startled, as Sunyin laughed out loud at my jerked movements and slapped his thigh in a way most out of character.
A peep over the craft's prow, down into the depths, all the way to the gigantic, double glass doors at the palace's rear, confirmed what the monk had spoken of. The enormous, velvet drapes behind the doors-cum-windows were drawn back to reveal a beaming face.
“Do you know him?” asked the old monk looking not for a second to the madly gesticulating idiot behind the glass.
“Yes. Yes, I do. That, my blind friend, is Sir Walter Merryweather, and we may be in more trouble than I first suspected!”
Chapter Seven
-
Ivory
The glass door drew back to reveal a grinning Merryweather.
“Have you put on weight, Jean? That craft's listing like my old girlfriend's knickers!” he bellowed, even though we'd descended to eye level and were less than ten feet away. “You look like you've seen a ghost, or toast, or a little of both?”
“I see you survived then.”
“No thanks to you. But, hey-ho, I'm not one to hold a grudge. At least you came to find me.”
“Well, to be honest, Merryweather, I'd forgotten all about you.”
“Meeeee! But, I'm unforgettable!
“Apparently not.”
“That's deeply regrettable.”
“So you say.”
“I find it quite incredible.”
“Do you?”
“And so inedible.”
“Stop talking nonsense. Have you lost your mind, man?”
Merryweather paused, scratched at his chin and shook his head, his floppy mess of blond hair looking like a bird's nest dislodged by the wind. He gazed down the valley, then back to the flying platform, and then up into the rose-tinged sky. “Do you know what, Jean, I think I just might.”
“Your friend is very excitable,” noted Sunyin.
“He is not my friend.”
“That's harsh! After all I've done for you.”
“You didn't even have the decency to die when I wanted you to.”
“I'm un-killable, un-murderable, un-slaughterable, and un…I can't think of any others!”
“Maybe, you were just first time lucky,” I suggested. “And stop shouting.”
“I blame you.”
“Thought you might.”
“And I will stop, but only because my throat hurts.”
“Hm.”
“Well, if you'd done the job right, I wouldn't have had to mope across the landscape looking for somewhere to hold out, would I?”
“Rest assured, Walter, I shan't make the same mistake twice.”
“That's not very reassuring. It's not very reassuring at all. How's Linka by the way?” he added, with an exaggerated wink.
Unable to contain myself any longer, I made a lunge for Merryweather, who ran off into the Marquis' palace screaming like a girl. If not for Sunyin grasping my trouser leg, I would probably have gone right over the flying platform's ledge in my efforts to scrag him.
“Thank you,” I said, pulling myself back together.
“You're welcome, Jean,” Sunyin beamed. “But please explain, why can you not settle your differences with that funny man? He seems happy enough to see you.”
“It's a long story.”
“I have time.”
“NO!” I bellowed.
“Does he always generate such hostility?” Sunyin's calm reply.
“Yes,” I said, this time at a more sociable level.
“Do you need a helping hand?” grinned Merryweather from his masterful hiding place behind the velvet curtain.
“You're back, are you?”
“Seem to be.”
“You weren't gone long.”
“I so
on get bored these days, and hungry,” he said licking his lips in Sunyin's direction.
“Trust me, Merryweather, touch the monk and I'll rectify any mistakes I made in finishing you off the first time.” I gave Merryweather one of my dirtiest looks to emphasise the point.
“Ah, but that implies that you won't touch me if I don't, which by a process of elimination leads me to the conclusion you've already forgiven me.”
“It may imply it.”
“Still as grumpy as ever.”
“Where you're concerned.”
“Oh, well, might as well invite you in.”
“Yours now, is it?” I said with a nod to his new home.
“Well, I can't see the Marquis hurrying back here, can you?”
“How would I know? Dear Vincent has mastered the art of avoiding my attentions. I don't suppose not being in his own home when I should most desire to throttle him will be any different.”
“You do have some strange reasoning.”
Merryweather leaned out over the abyss so far I thought he should fall at any moment. I watched him, alive in his own little world of eccentricities. He hung there by his fingertips releasing one at a time until a single digit dug into the doorframe.
“Merryweather!” I barked.
“Oh, sorry, old boy,” he said snapping to attention and pulling himself indoors.
“Can you catch Sunyin if I toss him?”
“I really do worry about you.”
“Grrr! Just do it,” I growled.
Merryweather took an exaggerated step backwards and stood there with his arms poised as though cradling a baby.
I shook my head and helped Sunyin to stand. “I'm sorry, my friend, it's the only way to get you inside.”
“I trust you, Jean.”
“Right, here we go,” I said, grabbing two fistfuls of his robe. “One…two…”
“Chuck him!” shouted Merryweather.
So I did. And much to my surprise, my antagonist not only caught him but gently placed him back on his feet. I followed, with the grace of an overstuffed duck.
“Jean?”
“What, Merryweather?”
Hunter Hunted (The Eternals Book 2) Page 6