As if an actor waiting for his cue, the Zeppelin I knew my enemy to be on board emerged through the billowing plumes of black smoke like an aerated pig. The balloon was high, stratospherically so, he'd taken no personal risks, but still couldn't resist the opportunity to gloat. I prayed Linka was up there with him. I had to believe she was.
The balloon moved east at a lethargic pace. It could go much faster, but what had the iron prince, or king now, to go faster for? One thing I recognised with a sure-fire certainty was the idiot didn't have enough subjects left to warrant ruling. The one Europan of distinction left standing would not cede to it, namely me.
I wondered if Vladivar suspected me dead, or surmised my being in the palace and therefore still suspected it? I wracked my brain over the different connotations, the twists and turns, but decided it ultimately futile. Whether deceased or not, he'd find out in person.
Feeling a sudden determination to correct his vision of my extermination, I took one last look at the iron vulture, then shot off towards the stables.
Due to the contained nature of the palace blast, yet another of science's mysteries, I was pleased to find the stables unharmed. An overturned feeding bucket seemed the sole casualty of the explosion. I rectified that small wonder by booting it as hard as I could in the opposite direction. Then came the agony of choice: horse; horse and carriage; horse-towed coffin? I opted for the latter unwilling to take the risk of being caught in the open and incinerated. Getting to Linka alive was better than not getting to her at all.
I harnessed up two of the finest looking equine cyborgs, strapped the only cart containing a coffin to them, a rather ragged one at that, but beggars couldn't be choosers, and sped from the stables at such a rate as to become entwined in my cloak. Fortunately, the horses knew the way from the palace, and by the time I became disentangled, we were halfway down the tree-lined avenue in an almost direct line with the Zeppelin that flew overhead.
I had no idea what I would do, or where I would do it? The only constant that flitted through the dark recesses of my mind was to reach Linka before Vladivar did whatever he intended to her. She had to be worth more to him alive than dead, didn't she? Why else have kept her alive? If she was still alive? So many questions without answers.
I mulled over the situation in perpetual circles as the stallions hurtled down mile after endless mile of highway. Linka and my mobile home occupied my full attention. Many a time did I think my precious cargo would be tossed from the cart, smashed to pieces, or rattled apart at the joints and collapse flat to the floor. Luckily, the coffin appeared stronger than it looked. It, and its kind, were a necessary travelling companion for any Eternal who chanced a tussle with the dawn, as such they were built to last. I had my doubts though.
No matter how fast my steeds progressed we never seemed able to draw close enough to construe a way to board Vladivar's craft. Whilst we hurtled through the decaying landscape, twisting and turning our way along the meandering highway, Vladivar aimed straight as an arrow for his homeland. No sooner did we catch and drive beneath him than necessity forced us to veer away at a tangent. Until, that was, the leading edge of the Himalay/Alp massif reared into view: Vladivar would have to climb higher. That gave my stallions an edge.
I ushered the horses into greater exertions. The creatures pounded the road as though earthbound thunder, their hooves an unstoppable force. Power met resistance, but for the time being, power won. Almost as if the horses sensed the challenge ahead, they increased their pace to such an extreme that all was a blur of motion, and I had all on to turn them from the flat to the steady incline of an Alpine pass. But turn they did, and ascended skywards with the assuredness that not only had we passed the Zeppelin, but rose towards it.
Onwards we climbed as the clouds thickened and languid snow fell from the sky. It was a pleasant experience, especially with my partiality to the white stuff, but as the snowfall quickened and the pass became more covered, I couldn't help but panic. That, coupled with an incessant drone that even drowned out the horses' stamping feet, a noise which had to be the Zeppelin's mighty motors, drove me to the point of madness. The feeling I should never see my love again, that I had one opportunity to intercept her captors, rang like a constant warning through my mind. Then, in the midst of the maelstrom, the horses crested one final brow, and we stood atop the world.
I pulled with all my might on the stallions' reins who came to a dramatic, skidding stop, a little too close to the edge of a chasmic drop for my liking. I hopped onto the driver's seat, as though the extra two feet helped, and scanned the horizon. Eyes attuned to night drove deep into the tangled mass of pitch-black and falling snow, but not only could I see no Zeppelin, I couldn't hear it, either. It was as though the Alps had eaten them apple-like, gorged upon Vladivar and my dear Linka, and not even spat out the pips. I was too late. They had gone.
How the Zeppelin had risen above such formidable heights so quickly, I'd never know, but I sensed my dearest love ebbing away into a white distance.
The snow, perhaps sensing my sorrow, increased its cascading. A comforting blanket of softest flakes settled about me, as I slumped back into my seat, head in hands. I'd lost the only two women I'd ever loved. Twice my inaction had cost me dearly. The horses snorted an equine agreement as the eastern horizon lightened through the snow.
For a second or two I contemplated remaining in my seat, letting the sun's rays wash over me and ending it all. Being with Alba in that realm between death and heaven held a certain appeal, seeing my parents again, maybe even Chantelle if, like almost everyone else I'd ever known, she could be persuaded not to bore me. Yes, the sun would have solved a lot of problems, except one: Linka. The girl's image drifted through my mind like mid-summer rain a cleansing, comforting thing. Whilst hope remained, I could not give up, although I knew not what else to do?
I took one final look at the distant pink hues transfusing a cherry blossom snowstorm and stepped into the back of the cart. The coffin lid lifted with ease and I prepared to take to my rest.
“Good morning, Jean,” said the blind Sunyin uncrossing his arms and stretching out of the coffin's confines.
“What the…!” I shouted, almost falling backwards out of the cart.
“I gather you were not expecting me? Did you think I would allow Crown Prince Vladivar to apprehend my brothers without aiding you in their retrieval? Ah, I see from your face, you had forgotten my fellows.”
To my immortal shame, I had. “I apologise…I…”
“You need not apologise, Jean. Young love blinds those so engrossed to the wider world.”
“Linka…I…”
“Stop. Please, say no more, or at least try not to say more.” He chuckled at his words, his misted eyes as though stationary snowflakes caught upon his face.
“I don't know what to say?” I muttered, shaking the snow from my cloak to occupy abstract thoughts.
“Then, say nothing,” he said with a gentle nod.
“But, how did you know?” I managed. “How did you know I would choose this cart; this coffin; this path?”
“We are all on paths, Jean. For a time, yours and mine are shared.”
“That's a little cryptic of you,” I said, trying not to show my nerves at what I realised the rising sun.
“You worry?” he said, gesturing with a bony hand to the horizon.
“Yes,” I quaked. “It is time for me to sleep, oldest of the Sunyins.”
“Then sleep you must though I believe you have plenty of time to do so.”
“I won't take that risk if you don't mind.” I helped him out of my bed with as much haste as I dared. “Will you be all right out here in the cold?”
“It is no more so than when I was asleep.”
“Do you know the way?” I asked.
The old man looked at me through those blind eyes and smiled as though I was a questioning child.
“I have always known the way, Jean, as have your horses, as has the sun in the sky. It
is not the knowing, but the choosing to follow that is the question we must all answer.”
I returned the old man's kind look, as best I could, fangs protruding past my lower lip. If he sensed them he did not show it as I pulled the coffin lid shut and left the old man to brave the elements alone.
* * *
Sleep eluded me. Instead, I allowed the sound of snow on wood, a gift of my heritage's hearing, to lull my whirring mind. The old man's whisperings as he turned the cart about face and the muffled steps of the horses added to the ambience. Entrusting my undead life to the man in the driving seat was the safest and most sensible thing I'd ever done. There was something about him that felt right, fated even, and that under his direction I would soon be reunited with my darling Linka. Perhaps, we shared a single path, after all, a preordained route. But I discounted that thought. Nobody, not anyone but me was in control of my mind and body. That was one thing I'd always been sure of.
I'd almost fallen asleep, when I heard the dulcet tones of Zeppelin motors move across the coffin like a winter's tide. I'd missed her. The bastard had slipped through my clutches. I'd failed, again.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
-
Iron
I stirred to the strangest sensation. My body felt weightless, somehow lighter than normal? The grey mists of Eternal sleep washed away to somewhere around my ears leaving them shushing on some foreign sea. I found it relaxing in an odd way.
Full consciousness happened upon me in a rather less pleasant manner. Not only was there the sound of sloshing liquid, but my ears swam in it; the coffin was half full of water!
I'd have relished the luxury of panic but all Eternals knew the sun's position, their continued existences depended upon it, and I was no exception. I was well aware that somewhere behind my shoulders the sun had not set. Exiting the coffin was not an option. Neither could I hear the reassuring words of Sunyin, nor the clopping of horses' hooves: what to do? Bereft of options, I pummelled the underside of the coffin lid, each blow muffled by the water.
“Do you wish to emerge?”
“I do not!” my inelegant return. A large gulp of bitter, stinking, liquid did not aid my mood. “What's happening, it's filling up with water in here? I'm drowning!”
“I believe that would be due to the river, Jean.”
“What river?”
“Can you drown?” came a calm response.
“I don't know, but I have no intention of finding out. And, I asked, what river?”
“Do not worry we are almost to the other side.”
“I may drift away; be smashed to pieces; sink, never to be found!”
“I doubt that very much,” came a very unreassuring reply.
“I don't like crossing water.”
“That is not a problem you need worry about, Jean.”
“It's a good job the sun hasn't set!” I gargled through a mouthful of liquid. “It's getting worse. Help! Help!”
“Stop your theatrics, I'm blind, yet I do not squirm.”
“You're not the one locked in a waterlogged box,” I spluttered.
“Neither are you.”
I had the urge to take my chances with the fading sunlight just to get my point across to greater effect when I felt myself tipped back. Putrid water entered my every orifice. But, as I thought my world to end the coffin drained as fast as it had filled, and I heard the comforting tones of hooves striking solid ground.
“Is that better?” Sunyin called.
I neglected to answer in fear of upsetting the man who'd shown me nothing but good will until now.
“We are at the far side,” he added.
“I realised,” I huffed.
“Ah, then you are well.”
“I'm not sure I would call it that?” I said, attempting to shake the water from inside my head.
“Any water crossing you survive is a good crossing.”
“Hm, you say that now.”
“Yes, I do, although it was my first time crossing it too.”
“Oh, I'm sorry, I did not realise.”
“No need to be, I enjoyed the experience.”
I admired the old man's courage. There I was procrastinating, an Eternal, an undead, a man who probably couldn't drown and hadn't so far when the opportunity had arisen, whilst he, a blind and ageing man did not hesitate in risking his own life for those in need. A re-evaluation of priorities would be on the cards once I'd concluded my business with Crown Prince Vladivar.
I lay in waterlogged discomfort as Sunyin drew extraordinary efforts from the stallions. The stamping of equine feet thundered through the cart and echoed around the confines of the coffin. But after a time even this grew hushed, smothered by the flat grasslands. There I lay marking the seconds in bumps and bruises until the moment came when dusk arrived. I arose.
“Good to see you, Sunyin,” I croaked, spitting the last of the vile water from my throat.
“Good evening, Jean. Did you sleep well?”
“I never sleep well.”
“That is a shame.”
“Comes with the territory, I suppose.”
“That should not have to be the case,” the old monk said and gave a solemn shake of his head.
“Would you like me to take over so you can sleep yourself?” I suggested, striving to change the subject.
“My sleep is permanent,” he smiled, turning his milk-white pupils upon me.
“Then, to rest?”
“I shall rest soon enough, my friend.”
I did not press the point as he looked quite at home behind the reins.
“At this pace, I expect we shall soon reach Vladivar's castle,” I mused.
“We shall.”
“Have you been here before?”
“No, I've never left the monastery, at least, not for an age.”
“Then, how do you judge the distance.”
“I hear my brothers' calls.”
“They are alive, then?”
“They are.”
“Good, that is a great relief,” I sighed.
“Is that care I hear from the man who it was said could not?”
“Who said?” I snapped, then regretted it.
“The world said.”
“Oh, I see.” But, I did not.
“I think you are a changed man, Jean. One might hazard you have become the best of men.”
“Ha! I do not think so, master monk. There are many finer people in this world.”
“Can you name one?”
“Name one, what?”
“A finer man in Europa?”
“Are there any left?”
“There you go,” he said.
“Hardly a ringing endorsement.”
“An endorsement nonetheless,” he laughed.
In fact, the monk laughed so much that I thought he may fall from his seat and be crushed beneath the cartwheels. I became so concerned, I placed my hand upon his shoulder to steady him. He cackled away as though he had not done so in aeons, shaking loose the soil in his pleasure.
“And there you have it, Jean,” he spoke, having ceased his laughing mid-chuckle. “Would you have done that not so long ago?”
“This is different,” I grumped.
“How so?”
“You are human.”
“We are all human, Jean, just in different stages of humanity. That is all.”
“Well, I prefer yours,” I said. “I think our stage has run its course.”
“Like all life it evolves.”
“But that is it exactly,” I said. “We Eternals are not alive; we have no life.”
“But neither are you dead.”
“No, we are not. Not yet.”
“You should not be so hard on your kind. Every species has their own way of coping with destiny. Yours was to dance into what they thought the end of all.”
“Is the end,” I corrected.
“If you wish.” The old man smiled and bowed. I think he pitied me in those upturned lips an
d clouded orbs.
* * *
We drove on in relative silence. Not until the barren openness of grasslands and scrub gave way to the rocky vastness of Vladivar's dead valley did sound return to our world. Hoof steps deadened by turf found renewed amplification within that accursed valley, their passing unmissable in the confined space. The noise deafened, but if it disturbed the old man it did not show.
I would've spared Sunyin that jagged entry to Vladivar's domain, but nature had got there first. At times, I envied him his blindness. First to manifest were the pinprick spires that peppered the prince's palace. They broke the monotony of the obsidian ridges in irregular spikes. Next, the towering, rust coloured boil that was his home drove up into the sky like a maltreated blade. If I'd been anything other than the man I was, I think I should have known fear, but to Vladivar's immortal misfortune, I was me.
We reached the foot of the carved, rock staircase in no time at all. I dismounted and helped Sunyin to the ground, all the while scouring the area for armoured guards. I'd expected an unpleasant arrival, but not being met by a company of guards, disturbed as much as being so. However, I kept my thoughts to myself so as not to worry the old monk.
“We have arrived, I presume?”
“Almost,” I returned. “I'll unharness the horses and we shall ride to the summit. This staircase leads straight to the prince's maw. If it is easier, you are welcome to ride with me.”
“Is it far?” Sunyin's head lifted, as though he took in the ascent.
“Sorry, I forget your eyes.”
“I will be fine,” he insisted.
“I don't mind.”
“You are a thoughtful man, Jean. I hope someday you'll realise it, but it is less an ascent than the one to heaven that which we all must take.”
“I am not destined for heaven.”
“Well, we shall have to agree to disagree, my friend.”
The horses were glad to be free of their shackles, namely my portable sleeping arrangements, so much so that with a final buck of pleasure one of them shattered both cart and coffin to splinters.
“That did not sound good,” Sunyin said.
The Eternals Page 23