Into Eternity (The Eternals Book 3)

by Richard M. Ankers

  “Must be a woman thing.”

  “You aren't very good with women are you?” I said.

  “Says you! And you stole that line from me.”

  I just shook my head in dismay.

  “I'm getting rather sick of this fog.” Merryweather took an idle swipe at the gloom as though swatting a lazy fly.

  “Talk about changing the subject.”

  “I live on a whim, what do you expect.”

  “Not much.”

  “Oh, tee-hee, my sides are splitting.”

  “Watch your stitches.”

  Walter pulled a face and stuck out his tongue. “Fancy a wander?”

  “Where?”

  “After them, of course, I want to know what's going on.”

  “She's your daughter for God's sake!”

  “That's why I'm concerned, it's a paternal thing.”

  “It's a nosey thing.”

  “Don't tell me you're not intrigued.”

  “I'm not intrigued.”

  “Ooh, tee-hee, two in a row. You win a prize, dear boy.”

  “Unless it's some secluded shore where I might spend the rest of my days with Linka, then I'm not interested.”

  “All out, I'm afraid.”

  “Thought so.”

  * * *

  Like two less than clandestine assassins, we made our way back through the ever-thickening fog. What had started as sheets of grey fast turned to charcoal blankets. If the sun shone in the sky, even if somewhat depleted, there was no evidence of it from the grounds of Shangri-La. And so it was with an air of resigned inevitability that after too long a rambling around Walter announced, “I think we're lost.”

  “Oh, bravo, genius!”

  “No need for sarcasm, I was following you.”

  “How could you be following me; we were walking side by side.”

  “To the untrained eye, Jean. And, besides, I feared you might get lost and felt it my duty to look after you.”

  “Well, when you put it like that…”

  “Oh, no need to thank me, I'm no hero.”

  Walter pulled a bashful pose only to enrage me to the point of actually wanting to bash him.

  “You must to do something about that anger of yours. No human in his right mind would want to save an enraged face like that.”

  “Do you honestly think they will?” I asked.

  “No, I just said, not with a face like that.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Well, I hope so. So it is written, so shall it be, and all that. One can't go spouting prophecies without having some resolution to fulfil them.”

  “You mean actual recorded proof.”

  “I was being literal: written, painted, recorded, it's all the same.”

  “But you said you did the painting.”

  “Why, did you like it?”

  “Very educational.”

  “In that case, yes, I did.”

  “Well, it should be accurate then.”

  “I was rather alcohol afflicted at the time. I even sketched it in my own blood, all except the sun which was a crushed daffodil. There's never a goddamn pen in your pocket when you need one!”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “A premonition of sorts. I had this feeling in my blood. Blood… do you get it?”

  “Yes.” I gave him the raised eyebrows treatment too antagonised to go to the trouble of shaking my head.

  “Hmm, barrel of laughs you are. Anyway, as I was saying before you rudely interrupted me, if you've a memory like mine, you sometimes need to take precautions. That's why I did it, so I wouldn't forget. As I'm sure you're sick of hearing, it was a very long time ago. My recollections are hazy at best.”

  “Can you remember them leaving.”

  “No.”

  “Not a thing! I'd have thought it one of the more momentous occasions in history, a race leaving their home and all that.”

  “I suppose I was more inclined on feeding on them than wishing them a merry journey.”

  “Then, why paint yourself waving them goodbye?”

  “Who said I was? The whole thing was a masterpiece of exaggeration. Based on the truth, of course, as all the best myths are.”

  “So what you're saying in your usual roundabout way is that it's not necessarily accurate.”

  “It's reasonably accurate, I would think.”

  “You would think!”

  “Yes, I'm not prone to exaggerating.”

  “You just said you were.”

  “Did I? I put it down to having no heart. Everything I've ever said and done since I lost it seems to have lacked a certain sense of soul.”

  “Just answer me this, if it's not too much trouble.”

  “I shall do my best.” Walter gave a deep, bow that instead of looking elegant just looked stupid, as his hair flopped over his eyes.

  “How many of the Hierarchy saw them go?”

  “Who go?”

  “The humans!” I raged and stamped about for a few seconds.

  “All right, keep your hair on.”

  “You drive me to distraction.”

  “Glad to be of service. Now, what was I saying.”

  “Hierarchy. Humans.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, in answer to your question, I should say all of them.”

  “All?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, they're as old as you.”

  “Getting on that way. What's a hundred years or so between the first bitten.”

  “Would that include my would-be parents?”

  “So you accept you're the spawn of my loins?”

  “Teeth, not loins. My parents?”

  “Yes, it included them. As Eternals went, they were very pally with their dinners. If you know what I mean? The Marquis, too. I suppose that's why they were all so good with all that technological mumbo-jumbo. Your average everyday bloodsucker had no time for such things, he just wanted to feast on the one wielding it. Didn't do them much good, though, did it? It must have burned when the humans left them behind. It was your parents who hunted down and turned those of humanity who remained. The irony, those bitten were as blank slates, anything they'd known before the bite was lost in the slurping. They spent hundreds of years sniffing out the little remnant sons of humanity that wouldn't leave, the atheists, disenchanted, lost, right down to the last.”

  “It didn't bother you that they left without you?”

  “Who?”

  “Humanity.”

  “Not at all, why would I want to leave?”

  And just like that Walter became a closed book. He stood a little straighter, fingered his floppy hair from his face and cleared his throat. His eyes narrowed too, but I hoped he didn't realise I'd noticed.

  “Come on,” he said. “I'm getting cold.”

  Walter gave an out of practise shiver, which was so unconvincing as to be laughable; I was in no laughing mood.

  “Let's get out of this infernal fog.”

  I was about to agree when a sudden lurching of the ground beneath our feet sent us tottering across one of the carefully combed grit gardens and Walter surging into a koi pond. The dandy stood there with a look of abject horror on his face as he realised his trousers were wet from the knee down.

  “What the hell!” I growled as a second judder sent him reeling back out and colliding straight into me.

  “Good catch,” he said."

  “It was an accident.”

  “I'm still grateful.”

  “What's going on?”

  “We both know the answer to that, Shangri-La is moving.”

  “Without informing us?”

  “I'm sure by now, my young friend, you might have realised, I am always the last to know. Well, second to last, after you, that is.”

  “I think we'd best get back inside.”

  “I agree. I'll follow you.”

  “Me! I'm lost.”

  “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo,” Walter said flapping his arms.

&nbs
p; “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I'm deciding which way to go.”

  With that, his flapping stopped. He had an extra little twirl like a broken compass, then pointed away from the koi pond.

  “This way,” he said with authority.

  I shook my head and followed him.

  * * *

  About a quarter of an hour later, we bumped into what appeared to be Shangri-La's perimeter wall.

  “Hooray, I did it,” he beamed. “We're back.”

  “We're further away than ever,” I moaned.

  But at least we have something solid to navigate by. I took the lead much to Merryweather's protestations and felt my way along the stone until reaching a staircase. We rushed up said stairs, and burst out of the gloaming into the pure ruby face of the bloated sun.

  “Good God!” I said.

  “I agree,” Merryweather replied wide-eyed. “That doesn't look good. That doesn't look good at all.”

  He was right. The sun was no longer bloated but taking up most of the sky Shangri-La flew through. Solid ground was far below and with it a sheath of fog.

  “Ooh, that's clever,” Walter cooed.

  “What is?”

  “The fog. Don't you pay attention to anything? That's Sunyin's doing, that is. A cloak of fog to hide us from prying eyes.”

  “Why didn't he tell us?”

  “We never asked.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “There you go. You sometimes need to ask specific questions to have questions answered specifically.”

  “You've been working on that little one liner, haven't you?”

  “Damn, did it show?”

  “A tad.”

  Up in the clear air, as we were, three of the giant, inflated Zeppelins that moved the city were clearly visible, the fourth, as I recalled, was obstructed by Shangri-La's central towers. The huge dirigibles all pointed in the same direction, but what direction that was, I was clueless. I leant out over the wall's edge and tried to take in the scenery below.

  “Any idea?” asked Merryweather, rather more reluctant to risk life and limb than I.

  “None, everything's changed. There are canyons where I think there were rivers, rubble were mountains once stood, but not one definitive landmark.”

  “If you want a job doing,” moaned Merryweather. The dandy rolled up his sleeves for no other reason than effect, climbed up on the wall and hung right out over the city by his nails. He looked this way and that, and then let go of the masonry to place a hand on his chest, me grabbing for his coattails.

  “Any clue?” I said, holding him tight.

  “Reel me in!” he bellowed.

  “What are you shouting for, I'm right here?”

  “Sorry, it just reminded me of a time when I sailed the seas with a man by the name of Columbus. Miserable bugger he was, he only ever went in one direction. I used to hang from the crow's nest and shout down to the humans from above. The easiest way to spy my next meal,” he winked.

  In an effort to get him back on track, I gave a sharp tug and returned him to solid ground.

  “Merci.”

  “Thank you would suffice.”

  “But I'm feeling rather ebullient.”

  “I'm sure you are, but all I want to know is if you recognise where we're headed. I'm not keen on having half a sky full of sun, it throws me out.”

  “Well, it's a good job I'm here then because we're headed south.”

  “Sure?”

  “Certainly.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I feel it. Something in my heart tells me so.”

  “You have no heart.”

  “Correction, young whelp, I have no heart with me. There is a marked difference. My heart beckons. It tugs at the cavern that is my hollow chest saying, Walter, Walter, Walter.” He placed both hands over his scar and pumped at it with a faraway look in his eyes.

  “Ah, well if your heart is calling to you, then I'm sure you're right. Oh, hang on, my head is calling to me.” I gave my head a vigorous shake. “It says, what a load of…”

  “One should not use profanities when within the boundaries of Shangri-La. It is frowned on by our father,” said a young Sunyin who materialised from out of the staircase's foggy depths.

  “Good to see you, Sunyin,” Merryweather said. “Could I trouble you to settle a wager?”

  “If I can.” The bald-headed monk bowed low.

  “Might you tell us in which direction we're headed.”

  “We're headed south, Master Merryweather.”

  “I'm terribly sorry could you repeat that?”

  “We're headed south, Master Merryweather.

  “Maybe one more time for Jean's sake.”

  “We're headed south, Master Merryweather.”

  “I suppose you feel it in your heart, too,” I said, trying to keep the sarcasm from my voice."

  “No, Jean, I was in the control room when we set off.”

  Merryweather burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter and raced off down the stairs. As fortune would have it, his taunts of “That told you, Jeany-boy,” were soon smothered by the fog.

  “I presume you came to collect us, or me, as it turns out now.”

  “Yes, Jean. If you will follow me, I shall lead you to the others.”

  I followed the shuffling figure of Sunyin down the stairs and back into the Zen gardens. By the time we reached the palace true, the fog had all but dissipated. A distinct tinge of ruby to all and sundry suggested it would not be long before Shangri-La stood revealed.

  “Are the others in the throne room?” I asked to fill the silence.

  “They are in the control room.”

  “Don't tell me, somewhere in the basement.”

  “The opposite,” Sunyin said without any edge. “They are in the topmost tower.”

  “That's a shock, I'm surprised the Marquis could make it up the stairs.”

  The Sunyin monk stopped, looked back over his shoulder and replied, “He had an elevator.”

  I hadn't a clue what he meant, but gave a sage nod, anyway.

  We shuffled along at a sedate snail's pace, I doing my best to instigate a little extra speed, Sunyin ignoring it. The monk led on through this door and that, down endless corridors that wound their way in circuitous passage until reaching a steel door. Down the side of the metalwork were two blinking lights, one red and one green. It was to the green button that Sunyin's index travelled. Upon contact with said button, there was a terrible screeching from above, which caused an involuntary step back on my behalf.

  “There is no need to be frightened, Jean. This is our means of locomotion.”

  “I'm not frightened,” I insisted.

  “Like hell!” chuckled Merryweather, as he bounded towards us.

  “I was hoping you'd got lost.”

  “I'm un-lossable.”

  “Is that even a word?”

  “It is now,” he beamed. “You see, I am both mother and father not only to the Eternal fraternity but to the words we use with such eloquence.”

  “Of course,” I said offering a finger to my throat.

  A loud thud and the opening screech of the elevator door that folded away into the wall like a concertina cut short any further conversation.

  “This way, please.”

  Walter and I followed the monk into a six-foot square room not dissimilar to an oversized coffin. No sooner had I finished my perusal than the door snapped closed with a clang and the floor beneath my feet juddered as though startled.

  “Ooh, this is exciting,” said Merryweather hopping from foot to foot.

  “Do you have to?”

  “I don't have to…

  “Hmm,” I replied, as my stomach almost exited my mouth. There was such a surge of unseen motion that I staggered against the closest wall, much to Merryweather's amusement, then leant against it for support.

  Sunyin remained focused, eyes forward throughout our brief sojourn, until with a
beep and clunk, we stopped. The elevator door drew back and the three of us stepped out into a room that beggared belief.

  “Jean!” exclaimed Linka, as she flung her arms about my shoulders. “Where on earth have you been?”

  “On Earth. Do you get it?”

  “Get what, Walter?” said Linka for us both.

  “We aren't on earth at all, we're above it.”

  Linka rolled her eyes, as I took in the room.

  From the waist up, it was a circular, all glass eagle's eyrie with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree panorama of pantheon-like vision. I imagined the Marquis secreted away like a hibernating toad believing himself the master of everyone in his seclusion. Below the waist, however, was even more Marquisesque. There were lights heaped upon lights, buttons stacked upon buttons and I hadn't a clue what even one of them was for. The old Sunyin, on the other hand, did. He sat in a comfy chair tapping here and pressing there under Aurora's direction, who stood adjacent, eyes closed, arm out and pointing. But it was her headgear that drew the eye. The Nordic wore a glass helmet of sorts, her long, white hair clearly visible beneath its containing clarity. The thing ran with rivulets of cobalt light, almost vein-like. It was also clear the contraption was the thing responsible for our movements. A chain of multicoloured wires ran close to where the old Sunyin sat fizzing and crackling in a more than worrying fashion. Whatever Aurora did within that oddest of helmets affected not only Shangri-La's propulsion but she herself. She concentrated so hard that actual sweat pooled on her forehead. I had never seen an Eternal sweat and it did not seem right it should be she who did.

  I was about to surge towards the princess and offer my aid when Merryweather barred my way.

  “You would be well advised to move,” I growled. “Aurora needs me.”

  “No.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because you, my impetuous friend, will ruin everything.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because Aurora tracks someone.”

  “Who?” I said, clueless as to Merryweather's insinuations.

  “Her brother,” said Linka. “She tracks her brother.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  -

  Eyes

  Linka led me away from the albino princess and over to a less active area of the glass tower.

  “Somewhere in that direction many hundreds of feet below is Grella.” Linka pointed into the horizon like distance should've been of no hindrance to our Eternal eyes.