Into Eternity (The Eternals Book 3)

by Richard M. Ankers

  “They linger still in a ramshackle coexistence with my people,” Grella continued. “The ebony ones are as alive as the ivory ones.”

  “Ah, you refer to the bears.”

  “I do. I am impressed, and I do not impress easily.”

  “Thank you, although they are not what you think.”

  I placed my glass down a touch too hard at that shattering its fluted stem. Gorgon shook his head as Violante did her utmost to ignore me.

  Grella raised an eyebrow and continued, “May I ask in what way?”

  “They are… what is the word, Violante?”

  “Genetically manipulated,” she crooned in her voice of accented gold.

  “Pardon?” Grella replied.

  “We produce them, not unlike the lavender your people bathe in. They take a little longer to come to crop that's all.”

  “How do you know what we bathe in?”

  I watched Grella's fist clench although his face remained impassive.

  “As I said, we have much to discuss,” Gorgon said taking over.

  If he was to divulge more it was postponed as a horde of servants entered bearing food and further drinks.

  Although there is no requirement for an Eternal to eat, they may if they wish. I always thought it a last ditch attempt to maintain some semblance of humanity, but I supposed others genuinely liked the taste of flesh and fruit. For my part, I nibbled. Whilst the two monarchs conversed over inane matters, I kept my eyes fixed on Sunyin, whilst partaking of as much blood as I could possibly drink; I suspected it would be beneficial at some later date.

  Violante did her best to ignore me throughout. I would watch her fingers spider across the tabletop to grab this morsel or that glass, her slender digits tipped in violet nail varnish just as I remembered them, feeling their way without ocular assistance. Her occasional huffs of indignation and tapping of one stilettoed foot suggested she was as ill-inclined as I at our nearness.

  Other than Gorgon's servants, who lavished he and his guests with attention, no others were present, I thought. The glass of blood that lifted, disappeared, then reappeared bereft of crimson liquor would have said differently. I kept that little act of refreshment to myself.

  I sat there whilst the seconds became minutes, minutes became hours, and hours became worse until my frustrations at Violante's almost incessant fiddling grew too much.

  “So, where is he then?” I blurted at the top of my voice.

  Everybody in the room turned to look at me, Grella included, and I couldn't have cared less.

  “Where is whom?” Gorgon said in a slow deliberate manner.

  “Merryweather.”

  “The Britannian?”

  “You know full well who I mean. It may have escaped Grella's sight, but I saw the second craft hidden outside the castle.” I hadn't, but he didn't know that.

  “Jean, Jean, Jean, you were doing so well. Why must you make it your business to spoil others' enjoyment?”

  “Because I make it my business.”

  “He does you know,” came the unmistakable tones of my foppish adversary. Merryweather burst from behind a folded curtain, tripped, almost fell on the floor, then wobbled over to where Grella sat and leaned against the Nordic king's shoulder. “Did you miss me? No, I know you missed me, so I shall rephrase. When did you start to miss me?”

  “The moment my fingers missed your throat,” I hissed.

  “That long!” he exclaimed. “Then, you must really miss me, my slow-moving friend.” Merryweather grabbed a decanter of blood, drank the lot, then wiped his mouth with the back of a frilled sleeve.

  “I was burdened before; I am not now.”

  “You are forever burdened, dear boy, it is your lot in life, or death, I forget which.”

  “Death, in your case.”

  “Oh, most definitely in mine,” he replied, ennui written across his pale features.

  Grella shot me a look of self-restraint, as he shrugged off the dandy's hands.

  Gorgon rumbled to his feet. “I thought I told you to stay out of the way!” he thundered to Merryweather.

  “I couldn't help myself, Jean was about to make a fool of himself and I wished to save him the embarrassment.”

  Violante, who had remained calm throughout the repartee, spat the drink she had sipped with ladylike grace from her perfect mouth, over the table, and onto the floor. A servant moved with sharp ease to clean it but did not get the chance.

  “Leave it,” ordered Gorgon.

  The servant moved back to his berth against the hall walls post-haste.

  Gorgon heaved his bulk around to stare me straight in the eye. “Jean, I shall say this once and only once. I care not if you believe me, but it is a warning made in good faith. I shall not permit violence within the confines of my kingdom, nor will I myself commit any. So when I say I hate Merryweather even more than I do you, you will understand how difficult it is to have you both at my table and not break that rule. However, I swear I shall not, as long as you both give me no reason to regret my decision.”

  “I thought you loved me,” Merryweather blurted.

  Gorgon's eyes narrowed; the balcony filled with shoulder to shoulder Baltic Guard.

  “I do not respond to threats,” I said with as much menace as I might muster.

  “Me neither,” chirped Merryweather from behind his sleeve.

  “It is not a threat. I merely wish to convey just how important the next few hours of discussion are to allow you both to remain here. The unfortunate coincidence that Merryweather, in particular, holds information I require is as much a source of frustration to me as it is to you.”

  “Jean shall remain seated,” Grella said on my behalf, for I seethed in my aforementioned seat.

  “Good,” said Gorgon. “And, you?”

  “I could wish for nothing more, than to sit here on the floor, with Baltic drink to drink, and kin with which to think,” Merryweather crooned.

  “An unnecessary response but accepted,” said Gorgon. He indicated for Merryweather to take a seat.

  “Might I enquire what you wish to glean from my sparkling wit, I mean mind, your dukeship?”

  “Of course,” replied Gorgon much to my surprise. “I wish to know when and how my daughter and I might get off this damned, decaying planet. And I wish to know before the sun, and with it, our world, dies. You see, I have no wish to die, for I have lived long enough to appreciate death's deficiencies.”

  “Oh,” said Merryweather, a touch nonplussed by our host's candour.

  “First, some entertainment.” Gorgon slapped his shovel-like hands together. The balcony guards withdrew, replaced by a full, dinner-jacketed orchestra.

  As if by magic, the room's bright lights dipped to less than a dozen candles' worth and that most frequent musical choice of the Hierarchy took over: Strauss, for nothing else would ever do.

  The music began with a rolling introduction to the Blue Danube, and despite a strong desire to not relive my past, Violante jumped straight to her feet. “Raven,” she said.

  “Oh, God, I'd always wondered who'd christened him that. Now I know.”

  I ignored Merryweather's mutterings, as Violante offered me a small hand. What could I do, but accept?

  Violante allowed the cape to slip from her narrow shoulders to reveal a ballgown of shimmering, silver sheen; she was as beautiful as a clear, new moon. She pulled me into the centre of the room and a space cleared by the gathered Baltic staff where we began to dance. We did not stop.

  I'd almost forgotten the allure of dancing with a beautiful woman. I nearly even smiled as we circled, dipped, and sashayed. Violante rested her tiny frame against my own and we danced as though there was nobody left in the world but just us. Like two suns converged by gravity, we spiralled to our joint doom. It was a good way to die as dying went.

  I wished for us to have stayed like that until the musicians grew too tired to play, but my hostess had to break the truce. Violante, smaller than either of King Rud
olph's daughters by a good head, gazed up with her big, violet eyes and smiled the smile of a cat who'd got the cream. But unlike that staple of the past, I had no desire to be lapped upon by any feline other than my emerald-eyed one. I concealed that thought; it would not have done to insult my host's nearest and dearest, but my stiffened gait gave the game away. However, Violante would not yield with the ease of some, and instead gripped me all the tighter and twirled as though her death depended upon it.

  I gave the occasional cursory glance in the others' direction: Grella and Gorgon talked in whispers, Merryweather slapped his thigh out of time to the music, but I otherwise gave my full attention to the exquisite creature clasped within my arms.

  “Tell me, Jean, do you still not desire me?” Violante purred.

  “I would be a fool not to.”

  “That is neither a yes nor a no.”

  “It is not.”

  “So, you wish to play the disinterested hunter.”

  “I wish to play no such thing.”

  “Evasion is a skill that only a woman can master.”

  “I have a strong feminine side.”

  “Really!” Violante threw back her head and laughed in a way most inappropriate to the sweeping melodies. “You need not worry about our past, for we have a more pressing shortened future to concern us.”

  “We have no past, Violante. There is no us.”

  “Ooh, that hurts, but I'll forgive you.”

  “No need,” I replied, and meant it.

  “Father was more troubled by your infidelities with mother than me.”

  “Good to know, but I suspect he'd still have my head if the opportunity arose.”

  “It would never arise if you took me as your bride.”

  “I feel too young to remarry. I prefer to play the field, sow my wild oats.”

  “There will soon be no field to play.”

  “You believe the world to end?”

  “I believe the sun to be ending and with it our world. That may or may not be the same thing, either way, it leaves little time for anything other than passionate lovemaking.”

  “I can only speak for myself when I say I find lovemaking to be the last thing on my mind.”

  “That is not what I have heard.” Violante set her eyes upon me in a glare of barely concealed jealousy.

  “And might I ask who you heard that from?”

  “You might,” she replied with a dismissive shake of her waist-length hair.

  “Now whose turn is it to be evasive.”

  “Evasion is a woman's prerogative.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes, really.”

  “Hah, well, no need to ask, as Merryweather is the sum cause of all my misfortunes. It does not take a genius to see the dandy's mouth has been busy. I have little doubt he's put his short time with you to good use. After all, did you not greet us in the rays of the sun.”

  I let that slip as I'd stewed on it since our arrival.

  “I will admit, the Britannian couldn't wait to impart certain salient details to my father, but he is also notorious for his unwillingness to uncover others.”

  “You seem to know Walter well.”

  “I know Walter very well.”

  I didn't like the way she emphasised very, it had vulgar implications.

  “And besides,” she continued, almost at a full head of steam, “you are the least keen observer of details in Eternal society.”

  “Really.”

  “Oh, yes, it is one of the most talked about subjects in the Hierarchy. Blind Jean, they called you, whilst there were some. I think it might have been Portia who christened you that.”

  Violante almost frothed at the mouth as we continued to twirl. I feared if she spewed any more venom in my direction, I might've slipped on it and done myself a mischief. “Can I interest you in divulging further?”

  “I expect our Baltic Guard greeted you at Gotska Sandön,” she blazed.

  “They did.”

  “And you think my father told them to stand in the sun and await you? How naïve you are, Jean. How naïve you have always been.”

  “Please, enlighten me further, dear Violante.” I spoke the words with cool disdain although my blood boiled. How could I have missed such a detail? “Enlightenment is so thrilling when achieved from the words of a beautiful woman,” I continued.

  “Oh, I'm beautiful now you want something, am I?”

  “You are beautiful whether I want something or not. You always were.”

  “Really?” she said, her tone calming.

  “Not really, I'd just always wondered what making love to a pixie felt like. It wasn't something I wished to repeat, your mother was so much better.”

  Violante's face infused crimson, no mean feat for our kind, her teeth snapping for my jugular. Gorgon's daughter thrashed in my arms like a reed in the wind but with equal ineffectiveness. She had always been a weakling, her short temper just scaring others into believing otherwise.

  I spun the girl around in my grip, placed one taloned fingernail to her porcelain neck and snarled; the music stopped.

  “Duke!” I called. “It is time for answers.”

  Chapter Twelve

  -

  Answers

  “Oh, for God's sake, Jean, let her go,” Merryweather mewled.

  “I think not,” I said, nodding to the resurgent archers who'd materialised like blue and yellow ghosts on the balcony. The Baltic Guard were famed for their marksmanship even if they'd not needed it in an age.

  “Just let her go.”

  “I will not. Not until I hear what I wish to hear.”

  “And what is that, youngling?” Duke Gorgon rose to his feet with a most unusual calm. A man of renowned impatience, one prone to violent outbursts, his whole demeanour had been out of character and I expected it to return at any moment.

  “How you know what you do?” I replied with unwavering determination.

  Gorgon gave Grella a look; he shrugged a reply.

  For those few seconds that lasted an eternity, I suspected all those who remained set against me, my stilled heart contorting. But as with so much in my life, I couldn't have been more wrong.

  “They came to me as bees, a buzzing interruption to the sleep of the dead,” said Gorgon, head bowed. The scar upon his pate cast a deep shadow across half his skull, a veritable gorge in the granite. “The sound deepened, and I thought it the rumblings of thunder, then more of the quakes that have beset the land with such frequency of late. Being almost past the point of caring anymore, a feeling I suspect you are familiar with, I arose from my coffin. I did not care that the sun shone. I did not even care that I did not care. All I have is my home and my daughter, Jean. If they were to collapse into the Baltic, then I would do so with them, eyes open to the dawn just for once in my life. So, I opened the drapes and stepped out onto the balcony. Even then I was denied departure; it was still night, you see. Chaos reigned, the world splitting asunder, the sea, our sea, swallowed before my eyes. I thought the end had come. But, instead, a new dawn had arrived and like a coward I stepped back towards the dark sanctuary of my room. That is when I spied them and reached for my telescope. I keep it by my bedroom window to watch the stars, I have always enjoyed the peace of a star-sprinkled forever. There they were. They floated high above the shattering landscape in an airship the size of this palace, bigger! So high in the sky were they that the sun's rays, those which had risen behind my back, shone on the ship's reflective skin just as it did on they. And, yes, my once enemy, I saw Eternals stand before the sun, not a sun of molten gold, the sun of legend and death, but a pathetic ruby excuse for a sun that offered no more harm to us than stubbing one's toe. I saw faces Jean, friend and foe alike, laughing in the daylight. Worst of all, I knew they had no intention of enlightening me. I realised in that twinkling vision, in that merest fraction of the time I've spent on this planet, I'd lived a lie. It hurt, Jean. It cut me to the core. I imagine you yourself have suffered the same awa
kening.”

  Gorgon paused, his bucket fists clenching and unclenching like one's stomach if starved of blood. I thought he might weep then that monster of a man.

  “I do not wish to die,” he said. “I know that now. And certainly not whilst trapped in the dark. I have resided there too long.”

  Gorgon took a rumbling step closer, held out his hand, and said, “Please, Jean, give me back my daughter. Violante is all I have and I have no wish to see her sacrificed because of that… thing!”

  “That, thing, was once the Princess Chantelle of the Rhineland and bride of Crown Prince Vladivar. She now considers herself Queen of all including you and I. Her husband is dead,” I added for clarification.

  Gorgon trembled as he stood there, so depleted was he. The man I once feared almost as much as Vladivar, but with more reason, stood a shattered husk of the giant he had once filled to excess. He did not lie, for no man could look upon a daughter with such sorrowful eyes. If I'd slipped and cut her perfect throat, I suspected he would have torn his own heart out right there and then.

  I released Violante to her father's embrace.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Violante, my dearest angel, I would appreciate you leaving us for a while.”

  “But…”

  “But nothing,” he interjected. “We four men must talk, whilst still we can.”

  “I can help.”

  “You cannot.”

  “Why?”

  “Why, my dear? For the same reason as always, it's hard to discuss murder whilst in the presence of great beauty.”

  “I hope that murder is not my own,” I said.

  “Not anymore, Jean. Not anymore.”

  * * *

  Violante knew better than to argue with her father once his mind was decided and trudged from the hall disconsolate. The dismissed guards receded into the shadows of the great hall like gleaming bubbles to then burst out of existence. Duke Gorgon then led Grella, Merryweather and I out of the hall and down a long, less decorated section of the castle to a simple room. A fire raged within, more sun than the sun itself. Decanters of blood and accompanying glasses awaited us on a small, wooden table that sat between four stately, red-leather armchairs. They required filling, and we obliged. Gorgon poured out the drinks, offered them around, then raised a toast. “To the past!”