“Think what?”
“I do not think you should be so inclined to listen to your internal organs. An Eternal's heart does not beat for a reason.”
“Hmm, very cryptic, but it changes nothing, and you are spending the night with me.”
Linka took me by the hand and led me back through the masses of twirling skirts; past the colour; the vulgarity; the falseness and decadence, and out of the ballroom. Nobody dared stand in the way of a princess. Guards bowed, others curtseyed or deferred to her passing. Women whom I'd had dalliances with – which was pretty much all of them – looked away, and I allowed myself to be drawn wherever Linka willed. Up a flight of crystal steps we swept, past row upon row of the Comte's self portraits. They portrayed him as a warrior, a hero battling mythical beasts and winning wars single-handed, when in fact he was just a sorry, little, stout man. He and his kind, which was all of them, where all very sorry. It was the way of the world.
Linka led me through long winding corridors, sometimes over silent, thick-piled carpets, other times to the clip-clopping of her stiletto heels, either way, all seemed a dream. Never had any living creature held me so spellbound. There was just something about her, and I believed at that moment I should have allowed her to lead me into hell, rather than the other way around.
I eventually found myself drawn through a pair of decorative, ebony doors and into a room of aqua walls.
“My room,” she said.
It was basic, almost completely taken up by a large double bed, and devoid of any coffins.
“Are you a mermaid sent to drag me down into the depths of despair?” I quipped. For some reason, I felt very nervous around her in a way I hadn't with any other woman before. She affected me.
“We shall see,” she replied, and closed the doors.
Chapter Fourteen
-
Linka
I opened inch thick curtains to the clearest most perfect sky of my non-life. An angel had touched me and still lay in my bed, wings clipped, unable to escape. The North Star shone down with a light that almost rivalled the moon and everything seemed less troubled than an evening ago.
“Jean.”
A soft voice beckoned breaking my reverie.
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
“No, not really.”
“I'm still marvelling at how these curtains kept out the light.”
“I told you they would.”
She had, as we'd laid there breathless, so to speak, but I hadn't believed her. It just so happened that at that instant I hadn't cared whether I woke or not. I was as happy as I believed I ever would be: no fools to deal with; no wondering how to break the tedium of my existence; no wondering where I would sleep that day, just Linka and contentment. I'd still woken early though, hard to break the habit and all that.
“What are you staring at?” Her voice was like warm velvet rubbed on cold skin.
“Polaris, the North Star.”
“Does it shine so bright as to draw you from me?”
“Nothing shines like you, my dear girl. I like to look upon its cold magnificence that's all. I've often wondered how something so illuminating can remain hidden. Now, I know.”
Linka threw back the covers and sashayed over in all her naked magnificence. Unashamed, she flung her arms about my waist and kissed my back.
“What draws you to it so?”
“I don't know. Possibly it's because I'll never see the sun and this is as close as I'll ever get.”
“Do you not consider the moon to be an Eternal's sun?” she enquired, kissing me again.
“Oh, no! The moon will always be the polar opposite of the sun. One without the other just wouldn't be right. I'll take the star over that anytime.”
“Which is it?” Linka asked with genuine interest.
I extended an arm and pointed to a curvature of stars high in the night sky. “Can you see? It is the brightest point at the end of the sarcophagus. The lid is thrown open and Polaris denotes the tip of its hinged point. It is in the ancient constellation Ursa Minor.”
“Yes, I see it now, my love.”
“In bygone eras they called that constellation the little bear, and before that the dog; Polaris denoted the tip of its tale.”
“How do you know all this?” she purred, stroking my spine.
“I've had a lot of time to fill. I've always read everything I could find; some things were of interest, others not. No more and no less, to be truthful.”
“Do I sense a hint of melancholy about your life thus far, my brooding raven?”
“Probably, I cannot deny it. If you call what we have a life that is.”
“Did you not feel alive last night, Jean? Did you not feel the earth move? I know I did.”
“That's the point, how do I know? You, me, or anyone that's left, none of us have ever truly lived. We haunt with passion, yet move without purpose, hiding for half our time here.”
“But it is a very long time.”
“Yes, very long indeed,” I agreed.
“Jean.”
“Yes.”
“Would you return to the royal palace with me?”
“I do not think that a good idea.”
“Do you not love me, desire to be with me?”
“More than anything, my love. But I am not sure it would be wise for your father and I to share the same space.”
“He will not dare a word against you if you are with me,” she said with supreme confidence.
“It's not that I worry of.”
“But you must, Jean, I should be lost without you.”
Linka looked up, her emerald eyes shining in the light of the stars, and I knew it pointless to resist her, for I couldn't.
“I'd be honoured to accompany you.” I recanted my earlier statement and smiled as best a smile as I could muster.
“Good,” Linka enthused, slapping her hands together with pleasure. She did a little jig of delight, which in turn delighted me. “Then we'd best get dressed and get ready to leave. The journey is long and the coachmen will await us.”
“Do we have to go right this second?” I bemoaned, catching her by the arm and pulling her close.
“Well, we could put it off for a short while,” she grinned.
I'd have grinned back, but was already upon her.
* * *
The carriage seemed fashioned from a single, gigantic ruby. The main body was almost translucent, which scuppered one set of plans, but I had to admire the nature of the thing. Two coachmen sat on a ledge of quartz that abutted the main housing holding the reins to four horses closer in size to elephants, or so I imagined not having seen an elephant, than usual equine beasts.
I assisted Linka up into the glinting jewel. Bedecked in leather boots and white furs, she looked magnificent. I was almost struck dumb when she reclined on one of the red cushioned seats and patted the space next to her. The moment my posterior touched the material, we were off.
I thought the horses Merryweather had procured were fast, but these beasts were in a whole different league. They skimmed the ground almost flying rather than running. The exterior world became a ruby haze; the interior, an emerald one. Linka's unblinking eyes appraised me in the way I would a painting. She sought my value, but whether it was to her, or others, I was uncertain? Either way, there was nowhere I would rather have been than in her stunning presence.
“Do you like my carriage, Jean?”
“What I've seen of it, my dear.”
“Oh, I know you like that one, but what of this? I designed it myself, you know.”
“Well, I'm very impressed. It really is a gem.”
“Is everything a joke to you?” Linka pouted.
“Not everything,” I replied. “It's just a way of covering my nerves.”
“Nerves! What have you to be nervous of?”
“I still can't say I'm over gone at meeting your father. I've made it my business to avoid the Hierarchy at all costs.”
“Why
?”
“They annoy me.”
“Why?”
“That's an awful lot of questions for one so young.”
“You can treat it as the same one asked twice if you prefer.”
I considered her statement but decided it too clever even for me. “To answer your questions…”
“I wish you would.”
“I'm trying to, my most rambunctious butterfly.”
“Ooh, butterfly, I like that,” Linka cooed.
“As I was trying to say, I dislike the Hierarchy.”
“I know that, I want to know why.”
I gave Linka a hard stare. She responded by zipping at her lips and throwing away the key.
“Thank God for that,” I jested. “Now, as I was saying. My dislike for the Hierarchy can be summed up in a simple sentence: they are waste of space.”
“He may well be, but that is still my father you are talking about,” Linka huffed.
“Believe me, it's not just he. I blame all the top brass for letting this world die.”
“How do you know it is dying?”
“I know.”
“But how?”
“The population is decreasing. Things are no longer as they should be. The world has been managed beyond the point of no return to meet the whims of the few. The sun has watched through tired eyes and is now ready to set for a final time. I have studied the sciences of the past and know this to be beyond doubt. I suspect all of a higher education do, and it is the reasoning behind their gay abandon. They party when they should act, my love.”
“But why do you blame the high council for this?”
“They've presided over a slow death, my dear child, when they should have organised against it. It's they who have allowed the Eternal race to become soft and shallow. They would rather dance into obscurity than fight for a possible future.”
Linka listened with intent, much to my surprise, as I continued to regale her with my thoughts on the Earth, the universe, and our place within it. She ran silk-gloved hands through her long raven hair and then chewed on their ends with a strange allure.
“You've given me a lot to think about,” she eventually said, as the stars shone upon her in tones of ruby hue.
“I have!” I said, somewhat surprised.
“Of course.”
“Society has always turned the other cheek to my concerns, dismissed them as slander. That might account for my defensive nature. I've grown tired of the general insouciance.”
“I think your point is well made although I don't know what we can do about it. Do you have any suggestions?” Linka asked leaning forward, hungry and expectant. Her ample bosom fought at its constraints, but unfortunately for me lost.
“I'm sorry to disappoint you, really I am, but I haven't. I fear we have lost the knowledge that could've rectified the problem, or at least provided hope. I'm as much in the dark as the rest of the population, both figuratively and in actuality.”
“And if we were not?”
“In what way?”
“If we were not in the dark?”
“I suspect it is too late for even a little knowledge to shed light on the situation. But one thing I know, Linka, is that when the sun sets forever it will be the end of all. There will be no more banqueting, no more parties, no more mid-winter queens.”
“Do you have to?” Linka giggled. “I'd just got the Marquise's image out of my head.”
“I wish I had,” I laughed back.
We continued in relative silence as the scenery whizzed past. The repetitive striking of hooves on road soothed my mind, and I lapsed into a dreamlike state. The countryside had altered since my last journey north-west towards the Rhine. The land had grown wild left to its own devices in the spaces between Eternal domains. That which remained, tangled copses of trees, shrubs interspersed by dried up streams that had once run haphazard about the place, and plethora of barren rock, looked real in a way the sculpted world never would. Nature looked natural, and the landscape was better for it, less pathetic, if all the deader.
Cocooned as we were in our transitory home, I lost myself to the passing debris of our once verdant world. Linka seemed just as preoccupied. Occasionally, her porcelain forehead frowned with problems beyond my ken. She'd palm at the gemstone windows as though wiping away non-existent mist. She was like a young girl on a strange adventure, one who deserved better accompaniment than I provided.
* * *
To see the stars below, as above, was oddly disconcerting. Only when I realised we'd swept around the brow of a hill to look down upon the meandering passage of the Rhine, did I understand it a reflection.
“Beautiful, isn't it?” Linka commented.
“It is.”
“The Rhine is one of the few unadulterated wonders of nature still left. I love to sit and gaze upon it from my room, the stars' effortless reflections bobbing in its rolling waters.”
“You make it sound so romantic.”
“It is, Jean,” she said, almost with a hint of desperation in her honey-like voice. “You shall see.”
“If your father lets me into the palace,” I scoffed.
“How many times must I tell you, my father will say nothing.”
I nodded in acquiescence, but doubted very much that he would. On the plus side, the longer I spent with the beautiful creature, the less I felt any desire to do my many would-be patrons' murderous bidding. But no sooner had I thought it than I wished I hadn't. Good things rarely lasted in my experience.
The spiralling towers of King Rudolph's palace appeared over the horizon like something from a fairy tale. I'd shunned the place for so long determined to haunt the lower regions of the Alps, which felt far more appropriate to my brooding, that I'd neglected the centrepiece of The New Europa Alliance for an age. Multicoloured flags representing all the nation states fluttered in a midnight breeze. It seemed strange to see so much camaraderie in the bunting of the higher powers. A stark contrast compared to the reality, where each Eternal hated the next with an unreserved passion. I hated them all, a far more balanced approach.
Linka placed her hand upon my knee and tapped as though impatient to be home. She stared straight past me. The ever shortening distance to her private world consumed her thoughts, and I felt her fingernails dig through her gloves deep into my skin.
There were many guards about the palace, some fearsome in their positioning others skulking, lurking for an intruder to make a mistake. Rudolph's palace bore a menacing presence thanks to the assembled protectorate, but one glimpse inside the ruby carriage and they returned to more subservient expressions. Linka gave them all but a cursory glance. Here, she was in her true element. She was the very personification of a goddess on Earth and I her devoted slave.
The coach entered her home via a pair of the largest gates I'd ever seen, even putting Vladivar's castle to shame. Glazed with crushed diamonds, so vivid they sparkled in the darkness, they lit up the night.
“Brace yourself,” Linka instructed, as I saw her push her knee-high leather boots against the opposite seat. I copied her, and just in time!
The carriage came to a skidding and abrupt halt positioned with perfection against the palace's portico entrance. The coachmen arrived in a shot bowing low to their princess and then to myself.
“I could get used to this!” I joked.
“Could you now?” came a terse, bright-eyed response.
I took Linka's proffered hand and allowed myself, in a reversal of normal decorum, to be led up the polished granite steps and into the palace true. Linka walked with languid purpose into the corridors of power, a white swan drifting along a moonlit stream. I followed, more my usual raven than wading bird.
It was clear in an instant that this was one place where at least a modicum of taste prevailed. Beautiful tapestries hung from every inch of wall depicting an Eternal past of far greater magnificence than the current sorry crop. White clad virgins being deflowered seemed a popular topic as did the almost st
atutory biting of necks; all very primitive, all very vampiric, but impressive nonetheless.
“This way, my love,” Linka beckoned. Through room after magnificent room she strode until throwing aside a set of heavy drapes she revealed the heart of the Rhineland in all its majesty. “Beautiful, is it not?” she purred.
It was, but I still played my trump card. “Not nearly as beautiful as you,” I whispered, pulling her near and clasping her by the nape of the neck.
“Hmm,” she breathed.
I bent in low to kiss those most wonderful lips when the words I least wished to hear shattered the moment.
“Get your hands off my daughter!”
Chapter Fifteen
-
Majesty
I froze, suspecting tens of guards to run me through at any moment and released Linka to free my arms, or tried to. She held my hand in a vice-like grip and turned to face Rudolph's red-faced fury – no easy achievement for a pale skinned Eternal.
“Good evening, father.”
“What is this…this…schweinhund,” he spat, “doing here of all places?” Rudolph's lips curled back like a rabid dog, his single fang protruding like a pointer searching for a map. His roly-poly physique looked set to pop, and I contemplated stepping behind Linka to avoid the splatter.
“I said, good evening, father.”
I watched something unwritten, something akin to pack dominance play out between the pair. Rudolph shifted from foot to chubby foot, his nostrils flaring. Linka remained impassive throughout his protestations staring straight into his eyes. The stand-off continued for just a few seconds, but those seconds suggested something far greater between the two combatants. It was the elder who succumbed to the pressure.
“Good evening, Linka, I am delighted to have you home.” Rudolph gave a nervous scratch at his arm. “But why have you brought…here?”
“His name is Jean, as you well know. As my guest, he deserves respect. What has this Eternal lord done to you to deserve such vulgarity?”
“What has he done? What has he done?” The king fumed with rage. “You know damn well what he did! I've laid my eldest daughter in a casket because of him!” Rudolph bellowed. The king hopped from one chubby foot to the other like a demented hippo.
The Eternals Page 12