Into Eternity (The Eternals Book 3)

by Richard M. Ankers

  Like cliff top boulders cast to a valley bottom, the five of us crashed to the uplifting floor. Sunyin groaned with the strain. I was never more grateful for having turned him than at that moment; a human would never have survived the wrench.

  Walter came down head first, as the pressures reversed, yet still, he clambered to his feet. I struggled more, God having taken a boot to my head and pressed down with all his almighty power. I felt the rush of upwards propulsion like a cork from a champagne bottle hurtling into the air. Regardless of the pain, I stood, although I felt my legs would shatter. I attained my feet using the console for a brace and dragged myself over to Walter as an earth-shattering explosion rocked our world. I thought our lives were over, but the explosion was not us.

  “Jean!” cried Merryweather, as the vortex from a smashed window strove to steal his words. “We must turn these dials in clockwise synchronicity.” He flapped at a wheel about the breadth of a hand. “On three: one, two, three!” I did as bade and heaved the thing with all my might.

  The oddest thing happened. It was as though we were trapped within a gigantic jelly, bobbling and wobbling about. The movement caused my legs to tremble like loose springs and Walter to burst into hysterical laughter at the sight of them. Yet as the moments past, the vibrations became less noticeable until like a stone cast into a pond their ripples ebbed away. We were still; I was grateful.

  “Where are we?” Linka said as she rushed to the unconscious Nordics' side. Aurora was out cold, sprawled at an inelegant angle.

  “We are hovering,” replied Merryweather. “As Shangri-La fell, I ignited the boosters to the Marquis' escape vehicle. Thanks to Jeany-boy's help, we are now adrift in the sky instead of hurtling to our death.”

  “We're what?” I couldn't help myself.

  “Hovering, like a bird. You must have seen the odd one around.” Merryweather flapped his arms to demonstrate.

  Not that I didn't believe him, but I didn't believe him. So, with the temerity of a scalded servant, I leant out of the shattered observation tower and dangled over the nothingness of a distant earth. “Good God!”

  “You're welcome,” Merryweather replied.

  I gazed out of the broken window to a patchwork earth, then realised something amiss.

  “What is it, Jean?” Linka asked, giving me a quizzical look.

  “There is no Shangri-La, it has gone.”

  “Not gone,” said Merryweather. “Jettisoned.”

  “As in gone?”

  “No, as in jettisoned. Shangri-La is down there, whilst we are up here.”

  I would have taken umbrage at his beamed reply but at that moment Sunyin collapsed to the floor in grief. The old monk burst into tears and hugged his trembling body.

  I cast my eyes to Merryweather, but he just shrugged and shook his head.

  “They are dead. My children are all dead.”

  “They may not be, Sunyin, there is always hope,” Linka said.

  I sat beside my old friend but knew not how to comfort him.

  “The bond we shared is gone. There is no hope. They are dead.” Sunyin put his face in his hands and wept.

  There was such an air of finality about his words I for one did not doubt him. Sunyin was the last of his kind and even then not the kind he should've been.

  I turned my eyes on Merryweather.

  “Don't you look at me like that. There was no other option. It was us and them, or just them. There was no way to save everyone. The Marquis only ever designed this with thoughts to self-preservation.”

  A gust of wind nudged the drifting craft we had become and I thought us to plummet again, but it righted itself just as quickly.

  “Grella?” came a small voice.

  “He is not here,” Linka replied. She stroked Aurora's milk-white hair with a tenderness true to her nature.

  “Where are we?” Aurora asked, opening her azure eyes.

  “Floating in the sky,” I said.

  “We are less than we were.” Aurora pulled herself from Linka's arms and over to Sunyin.

  Where I had no idea how to console, the snow-white princess wrapped her herself about the old monk and allowed him to weep freely upon her.

  “So what now?” I exhaled.

  “We fly, I presume,” Merryweather's response.

  “Can you?”

  “I don't see why not. The controls are rudimentary even if we have no displays left with which to navigate.”

  “We have windows and our senses,” Linka suggested.

  “Well said, dear girl” Merryweather's reply. “Let us see if we can put those senses to good use.”

  “We go that way,” Aurora said. She lifted a white-robed arm and pointed away from me.

  “How do you know?” Walter said with a degree of indignation.

  “Because I know things,” Aurora replied, and fell hushed again.

  It took Walter a while to work his way through the frazzled command area, but by trial and error, he propelled us in haphazard directions until settling on down and dropping the newly created ship to a more manageable altitude.

  When the crumbled mountains came into view I for one knew just where we were. One does not forget one's homeland so easily.

  “The Alps,” I said.

  “Not high enough,” Merryweather countered.

  “They are the Alps. I feel them.”

  “Oh, well, in that case, they must be.”

  “Despite your sarcasm and the ragged peaks, I would recognise this view from my deathbed.”

  “How would you?”

  “Because, Walter, it is the same view I had from my bedroom window. We are above New Washington, though I dare not look down.”

  Walter was less shy and headed for the window. He hung out as far as he could then retreated back inside. “Hmm, if I was you I wouldn't look down either. I think it's fair to say New Washington was hit by the tremors significantly worse than even the Baltic Sea.”

  It was like a dagger to my heart.

  “Is it bad?” I stumbled over the words.

  “Rubble and cockeyed lampposts bad.”

  “Oh.”

  “I'm sorry, Jean, I know you loved her once.”

  “It's all right, Walter, it's only the physical proof that's crushed. Alba was already lost to her Danube burial; this was just the aftermath of our love.”

  “Still, she was a good person.”

  “Yes, she was the kindest person I ever knew.”

  “And then she married you.”

  “Thank you, Walter.”

  “Sorry, old man, I didn't mean that as it sounded. My mouth runs away with me at times, more than ever of late. You know I always liked Alba and I like so very few.”

  “Don't worry, I deserve everything I get.”

  “Still, what a waste, what a terrible, terrible waste. You were the perfect couple in many ways, you'd have represented us well.”

  “Huh.”

  “Oops!”

  “So where now?” Linka intervened.

  Aurora's arm shot out again, and I knew from experience, she aimed south.

  “South it is,” said Walter who apparently knew too.

  * * *

  We moved through the sky like a rowboat on an undulating lake, the north wind seeking to unsettle us by capsizing. The air currents were more disturbed at the lower altitudes less serene somehow than our brief flirtation with the upper atmosphere. It was as though the closer we came to the surface the more troubled the planet became. There was a weird sense of irony in there somewhere, we being a troubled race on a troubled planet with a troubled sun. Never mind, I thought, we wouldn't be troubled much longer.

  “Jean, see if you can get any of those cameras working,” Merryweather said prodding me with his toe.

  “You mean the little screens?”

  “You may call them whatever you wish but whatever that is they shall remain cameras.”

  I was too tired to argue, so made my way from so-called camera to so-cal
led camera with the technical expertise of a dead crow. I prodded this shattered button then the next to no avail. By the time I'd made it all the way round the room, circumnavigating Merryweather and his disgusted looks at my results, I had lost the will to live. The final camera paid the toll for my boredom; I kicked it as hard as I could: success. The screen burst into imagery. Trickles of colour, dollops of vaguely recognisable shapes and a splattering of destruction revealed little to me, Walter, however, seemed ecstatic at the development.

  “Ah, I see you still have the magic touch with the fairer sex. I call that camera Arabella and she appreciates a bit of rough.”

  “Glad to be of service,” I rallied.

  The scathing looks from both ladies present did not seem to affect Merryweather one jot.

  “So, what have we got?” he said.

  “I think that's a puddle and perhaps a bit of beach.”

  “Oh, that's marvellous that is, bravo.”

  “Welcome.”

  “Could you try being more exacting?”

  “Not really.”

  “It is Northern Italy,” said Linka peering over my shoulder.

  “You needn't try outsmarting me too,” I said and flicked her nose.

  “Ah, my poor blind raven, you are such a trial.”

  “I am not. I just don't know where it is.”

  Linka pointed to the small print on the top corner of the screen.

  “Northern Italy,” I said to Merryweather.

  “Thank you, Jean, much appreciated.”

  “You're welcome.”

  “Should I talk to you from now on, dear girl?” he asked of Linka, as he pressed various buttons at random.

  “It might be for the best.”

  “Right, well if you touch the screen with your thumb and forefinger and pull them apart the image will expand out.”

  “Pan out,” I interjected, as Linka reached for the screen.

  “If that was working I wouldn't have asked her to do what I did.” Merryweather shook his head, my moment in the sun vanished.

  Linka manipulated the screen until the beach was only a line separating it from a muddied other. Another tug at the display and we looked down from a great height towards the Adriatic.

  “From the Dolomites before you ask.”

  “I knew that,” I said and flicked her again.

  “Am I right in presuming there is no sea?”

  “You are, Walter.”

  “Good,” he said. “That should shut Jean up before he starts.”

  “Starts what!”

  “The old, I'm afraid of water routine.”

  “I am afraid of water.”

  “A big strapping lad like you shouldn't be afraid of anything.”

  “Try telling my brain that.”

  “I would if I could find it.”

  “It's a good job you're the only one who can fly this thing.”

  “I believe I can fly it,” said Aurora lifting her head from its resting place on Sunyin. The old monk's tears had ceased, but Aurora looked unwilling to release him from her embrace.

  “I think we shall keep that in reserve,” Merryweather said with a wise nod.

  I ignored him and looked out across the broken landscape. We couldn't have been more than a few hundred feet in the air and had a panoramic view of Europa's wreckage.

  “There's not much left.”

  “No, my love,” I replied. Linka seemed to have caught my mood.

  “I wonder if the Rhineland is as badly hit.”

  “By the state of the Alps, I can only imagine it is.”

  “It was my home for so short a time, yet it was still my home,” she mused.

  “You have lost everything, whereas I have gained everything.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You have lost your parents, your home, your new life. You still have Chantelle of course, but she'd be better off lost.”

  “She always was.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Just reflecting,” she replied. “And you?”

  “I have apparently regained my parents, although I shall not believe it until I see it. I have Sunyin and Aura, my first ever friends.” I smiled at Aurora, which she returned. Even Sunyin attempted to lift his head and bow, though the effort only confirmed how weak he was. “And of course, I have you, my dear. I could ask for no more.”

  “What about me?” Merryweather bemoaned. “I'm kind of like a God you can spend time with. That's got to be worth something.”

  “You're something all right.”

  “Charming! Remind me not to save your life again. I've quite lost count of how many times you owe me it.”

  “I gave you the gift of sunlight, so that should make us equal.”

  “Pfft! By default. That doesn't count at all.”

  “It shall always count with me.”

  Walter huffed and returned to his pressing and prodding.

  “I am glad you seem happy,” Linka said.

  “Are not you?”

  She didn't answer, just strode to the broken window crunching on the fallen glass as she did. Linka cut a forlorn figure, shoulders slumped, her white robes dirty and dishevelled. She was less of the angel I had first met at the masquerade, but all the more delicate for her insecurities.

  “What is it, my love?” I tried.

  “Nothing.”

  I could not see the perfect face that peered out over the onrushing landscape but suspected it unhappy.

  “How long, Walter?” she asked.

  “We'll be there soon.”

  A rumbling and grumbling shook the ship. The world below contorted under violent pressures, the sun's gravity waging war with the planet once more.

  I walked to Linka and placed my arm around her shoulders. There we stood and watched the cliff faces and mountain peaks shatter. The world below was breaking up at the sun's continual expansion. Rivulets of magma opened in the earth's crust, as it had in Scandinavia, to run across the horizon like so many Red Danubes as to make the mind boggle.

  “The end comes,” said Sunyin. The old monk had moved to my side in soundless motion. His undead skills mastered, he was a silent hunter to match us all.

  “I believe it does, old friend.”

  “I am not sure I wish to see it, Jean. Do you think my eyes might return to how they were?”

  “I doubt it. But if it's any consolation, you may take heart in the fact your children have passed on before they witnessed the cataclysm. They saw life whilst there was still some semblance of beauty.”

  “Thank you, Jean.”

  “What for?”

  “Once again you have eased the burden on my soul with your kind words.”

  “Nice to have a soul to ease, I suppose.”

  “We all have souls, Jean, some just take longer to find them.”

  I pondered Sunyin's words as we all fell hushed. Only the occasional clacking of Walter's talons upon the metal instruments broke the silence within our circular cage and disturbed the constant bombardment of the planet beyond it.

  We made hasty progress over the destructive vista. Sunyin still looked less the man he had been, but at least his tears had dried and that was something. Once rested, Aurora came to stand with Linka and I. The girl had remarkable powers of recovery but remained as taciturn as ever. For his part, Merryweather jabbered away pointing out this landmark or that before retracting each statement in turn for his inability to confirm them. I thought he enjoyed our final flight, our last hurrah. I did not.

  When at last the solidity of a fixed landscape gave way to that which threatened liquidity, I had a moment's panic. My fears were unwarranted. Despite the glittering pools of the former Adriatic's remains, there was barely enough water to fill a bath.

  It appeared as if by magic, poking out of the mud at awkward angles, the once pearl of the Adriatic, the drowned city. The ruby sun's near death had exposed that legend of a submerged city. Venice remained.

  I smiled, then, a deliberat
e, cruel contortion of the lips, for if my nemeses were indeed there, then they were not as safe as they imagined. They were not safe at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  -

  Venice

  “What do you think, the bold, brash approach, or sneaky weasels?”

  “Let them see us, Walter. I want them to know we're coming.”

  “Somehow, I expect they already do, but bold and brash it is.”

  Merryweather fiddled about with the controls and said, “Hold on, I'm taking her down.”

  I thought it part of his usual overly dramatic flamboyance. When my stomach entered my throat and almost exited out through gritted teeth, I realised it wasn't.

  “This is it then,” Aurora stated in her matter-of-fact way.

  “I guess so.”

  “And still no sign of humanity.”

  Merryweather made an exaggerated look up to clouds. “Not today,” he said. “I suspect we're on our own.”

  “Good,” I replied.

  “I worry about you.” Merryweather shook his head and took his hands away from the controls.

  “Shouldn't you be pressing stuff?”

  “If by that you mean, shouldn't I be piloting this contraption to a gentle landing, then no.”

  “Does that not quadruple our chance of crashing?” I said with as much scathing ire as I could muster.

  “It would if we hadn't landed already.”

  “Damn!”

  “One-nil to me. Actually, that's about one-hundred-nil to me.”

  “I stopped keeping count once the sun came out.”

  There was a tinkling sound in the cabin, or room, or whatever it was and I thought it one of Linka's flowers brought from the Rhineland. It was not.

  Aurora placed a porcelain hand to her mouth but could not disguise her mirth. She giggled like a little girl and the world was all the merrier for it. The sound of bells filled the air and soon became contagious. I did not know why she laughed, nor at whom, and it mattered not. Within a minute, we were all laughing except for Sunyin. The old monk appeared clueless as to our mirth. We laughed so loud that I hoped those who'd manipulated so much heard and feared us; there is nothing to scare an enemy like laughing at his best moves.