Into Eternity (The Eternals Book 3) Read online

  “Don't be a fool, they had the same eyes as us.”

  I ignored his ill-tempered response and made my way along a path of sparkling, compacted sand taking in the sights of our gleaming world. We were in what was best described as a palace within a palace. From our central position, I could see the room was, in fact, a gigantic conservatory with four glass walls one of which abutted the main palace. Its opposite overlooked an almost sheer drop, which I presumed to be the palace rear. A single, massive sheet of perfect glass with Louvre blinds fitted beneath it comprised the roof. The room itself contained a staggering array of vegetation ranging from minuscule lichen to towering trees, and everything in-between. The trees formed a natural canopy above as did the tall grasses and exquisite display of flowers a barrier to those looking in. Arboreal security, one might have termed it, although I should have preferred, an opportunity for quiet. If one frequented the room, the flora would have rendered them invisible to those outside such was the design of the place, though, if anyone had risked disturbing the garden's resident keeper, I expected Gorgon would have seen to it they did not do so twice.

  The room's interior really was the most incredible sight I'd ever seen and put both the Comte's and Rudolph's palaces quite literally in the shade. Wherever I cast my eyes there were plants of such miraculous colours as to dazzle and distract. Each square foot of the glass shell was as crammed with orange, citrine and indigo, as it was cerulean, pearl and garnet. But most resplendent of all were the creatures that fluttered about in their random freedoms.

  “Moths,” I suggested.

  Walter sighed, shook his head and replied, “Butterflies. Moths need the night. Why would he go to the trouble of such a specialised amplification of starlight if he wished to look at those who require the deepest night?”

  “Ah, I'm with you.”

  “Thank goodness. Anyway, what do you think?” he said as a yellow and black butterfly about the size of a hand landed on his head. “Ah, a swallowtail, my favourite,” he crooned.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because, my poor, poor fellow, as I have told you on so many occasions, I know things.”

  I couldn't be bothered to argue, so left him to it, as I wandered about the flora. “I have to admit this really is something.”

  “It harkens back to another era, a better time.”

  “You sound like you miss it.”

  “Does it show,” Walter lost himself in a question that was not a question, his face saddening, his eyes tearing up.

  “Was all the world like this, Walter, all colour and creation?” I held my hand out, a small, purple butterfly alighting on my palm. It rested there a second whilst I examined it, and then flew off. The intense light from above shone right through the creature as it fluttered away almost like a kaleidoscopic ghost. I had no idea life could be so delicate.

  “There was a time when the world was indeed like this, and also many times when it was not.”

  “Do you remember them all?” I asked turning to look him in the eyes.

  Walter would not meet my gaze, he could not. For at the moment in time, that fraction of a moment in which I had known him, the real Sir Walter Merryweather shone through: he wept. I turned away, it didn't seem right to invade his private recollections.

  I made careful progress through the constructed jungle to the exterior glass; the world looked so much darker in the insipid ruby outside than the sparkling one within the glasshouse. I stared out across the hills and ravines, the distant mountains, and wondered if on a good day I might see the Rhineland before dismissing it as stupidity. Several butterflies had accompanied me on my expedition a small white thing, a darkish creature with two large, red spots like eyes and another of the swallowtails, as Walter had called them. The three insects all sat in a row on my right arm as if also admiring the view. Their combined colours shone over my black garb like jewels against ebony skin. They were so beautiful. What had we lost?

  “Yes.” The voice spoke into my ear as a ghost.

  “Huh.”

  “I remember it all,” said Walter stepping to my side.

  He did not look at me but instead out at the same view as I.

  “I remember everything: every detail; every moment; every life; every death, it is my doom to do so, my agony.”

  “Then, I am sorry, Walter. No man deserves that.”

  “No man!” he huffed.

  I quietened then, gave him another few moments to himself.

  “Bland, is it not?” he eventually said.

  “Very.”

  “I am sick of it, you know. So sick. I had my fill of it so long ago.”

  The urge to make a sick quip suppressed, instead, I nodded my agreement.

  “We have so little, Jean. So little as to be nothing.”

  “Had we ever?”

  “Yes. Once, we had this.” Walter lifted his arm to the veritable cornucopia of tiny butterflies perched upon his frilled sleeves.

  “It must have been quite something.”

  “On reflection, yes. At the time, one never thinks in such ways.”

  “Time!” It was my turn to huff.

  “Ah, the sound of a man who begins to see as I do. Now, it is my turn to be sorry.”

  “Is there no hope?”

  “Perhaps? Perhaps, not? If a man as cruel as Gorgon can find it in his hollow heart to care for creatures like these, the last of their kind, then perhaps we still have the possibility of some grand finale.”

  “One last hurrah.”

  “Exactly!” he exclaimed.

  And just as the man seemed more conducive to honesty than ever he had a great cloud swamped the sky and with it the light that amplified down on us. Like stepping from day to night everything seemed dowdy and lost, with it, Walter's recollective mood.

  “I must show you another wonder, although others would not know it.” He shook his head as though I should know what he talked about. “Come on.”

  * * *

  A minute later, the brightness of Gorgon's botanical wonderment lay behind us and once again we patrolled the duke's most hidden corridors. Merryweather led us into the very bowels of the duke's domain to a world of almost total darkness, then stopped.

  At first, I saw only a wall, an ordinary wall at that. When Walter tapped a booted foot on the floor, I looked closer; the wall was illustrated.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “Charming in a ye olde worlde kind of way.”

  “Now who's being sarcastic.”

  “I can't help it; you're rubbing off on me.”

  “You wish,” he tutted.

  “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

  “Honestly, you're worse than a child. Just start over there,” he indicated to the left, “and follow it through.”

  So, I did, hoping the sooner I was done the sooner I could sleep. I trudged to where the scrawled images began and traced a little piece of history recorded in time.

  Although the images were faint, painted in a red time had almost worn away, they were, nonetheless, navigable. The first image I noticed was of a man with long hair who stood before a cross like those which dotted the Baltic basin. “Who's this?” I asked.

  “Jesus.”

  “Who?”

  “The son of God.” Walter saw my vacant expression and shook his head. “You're wearing his bloody symbol around your neck.”

  “God didn't have a son,” I replied tucking it back under my shirt.

  “Well, I'll grant you not everyone agreed he did, but the vast majority would conform to it.”

  “Like a second God just junior?”

  “No. He was a man.”

  “A man! Why don't I know this?”

  “Because he was a man. The last thing an Eternal wants shoving down his throat is that men and not they were God's chosen children.”

  “Why didn't my parents tell me?”

  “You tell me. You must ask them when you see them.”

  “You t
hink I'll see them?”

  “I'm certain of it. Anyway, that's a discussion for another day. Get on with your review, I'm getting cold.”

  “We're born cold.”

  “You were,” he sniffed and fluttered his fingertips at me to continue.

  Next on the wall came fields of gigantic mushrooms that cluttered the landscape; some kind of ancient food source I presumed. After the mushrooms came lots of men all shaking hands. I recognised the scene after it only too well: thousands and thousands of crosses. Attached to those brooding symbols were people, or to be more exact Eternals, and all smothered in red. There were so many figures barely a square inch of the wall remained unpainted. One might have thought the artist's conception a failure that he sought to obliterate by a bucket of thrown crimson. It was actually quite sobering. Humanity tossed bared-fanged Eternals over the sides of boats to much cheering, happy smiles and further handshakes. It was very over the top. After that things settled down with images of architecture and forests and woods and all the best things in life. Until, that was, came the unmistakable image of the sun.

  I had reached the halfway point in the mural and it seemed of great significance. A whole section of the wall was given away to the sun. It was almost like seeing the stages of life from birth to teenage years to peak to decline all rolled into one flowing scene. The image of the sun at its zenith was the sole time a colour other than red was used as if to emphasise its importance. There before me with rays of light spearing off in all directions, our star hung gold and resplendent, but not for long. The sun's colour faded, its beams of light withdrawing to non-existence until all that remained was a washed-out, red globe. People scratched their heads and pointed at the abomination of what once had been so grand. Then everything changed again. Crafts not unlike the one the Marquis delivered his blood with appeared in their thousands all pointing straight up. I thought that strange. And then they were gone. Ship after ship was flying above the now faded clouds and heading for the pinprick stars, a pair of human figures left behind to witness them leave and I dared say catalogue the event. Next came a space with the odd vague scrawl and little else. I followed the nothingness until the same two people who'd remained to watch humanity leave reappeared drawn in white chalk. Tar smeared the final section of wall obliterating any possible ending. I backed away at its stench, but by then I was done.

  “This is the story of mankind's departure, is it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “They left for the stars.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it as Grella told.”

  “He told you this?”

  “In less detail.”

  “He continues to surprise,” Merryweather mused.

  “He didn't want to but deemed we might as well know as not. Time ending and all that. I presume this empty wall after the final images signifies the now.”

  “No.”

  “Do feel free to jump in at any moment, won't you.”

  “Yes,” he beamed.

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “What does it signify?”

  “Nothing. The painting's done.”

  “Oh,” I said feeling foolish. “I presume Gorgon had this painted as a reminder of the past.”

  “Oh, good grief no! The painting predates his dukeship's palace by millennia. It is written in the blood of the one who left it here, hence the red, if you hadn't guessed. I believe the sun is rendered from crushed dandelions, a nice touch of authenticity, don't you think?”

  I rolled my eyes. Merryweather continued.

  “When Gorgon found this wall, the remainder of some even older building, he built his palace around it before anyone could dispute his claim. I expect only we know it exists.”

  “Because you are old.”

  “I prefer experienced.”

  “And these two?” I said, pointing at the two who remained.

  “Shush, did you hear that?” Merryweather coiled up like a spring.

  “No,” I replied in all honesty.

  “Come on,” he said. “Look sharp or Gorgon will have our heads on a pike.”

  Merryweather grabbed my arm and moved like a fast flowing river through the depths of the palace. He careened around every corner, shot down every straight, until once again we stood outside our bedroom doors.

  “So,” I said.

  “So what?”

  “You wanted to prove humanity left.”

  “Not necessarily,” he shrugged.

  “You wanted to prove we could leave.”

  “History has a way of repeating. That is one benefit of time. Things unravel in surprisingly similar ways. I even heard speak of it being cyclical from someone too smart for his or her own good. But that was a very long time ago.”

  “And you think we will?”

  “Not think.”

  I stroked my chin.

  Merryweather gave a knowing wink.

  “We'll leave,” I mouthed and looked to the ceiling for some stupid reason. When I looked back Merryweather had retreated within the confines of his room and faked such loud snores as to wake the whole palace. There was no point in pressing him further, after all, there was always tomorrow.

  And for the first time in a long time, maybe there was.

  Chapter Fourteen

  -

  Violante

  Gorgon's opulent tastes continued into the bedchamber. The theme for my particular room appeared to be shades of purple. Like some lavish bruise, the bedchamber's walls were covered in a purple velour, the carpets the same, and the curtains, which reached from floor to ceiling, were of a deep aubergine. The ceiling, bedecked in images of great moments in history, or so I presumed, as I recognised none, was etched in lilac and violet with highlights of plum. On the plus side, each Eternal's face looked more alive than it should, almost human. The artist had caught men and women in every imaginable act, every, many of them also accompanied by children. The young ones hopped and skipped under the watchful gazes of their parents, whilst scenes of pasture and prom played out around them. I found it nostalgic in a finger-down-the-throat sort of way. Even more so if you liked children, which I didn't. One person who would have appreciated the general frivolity of the thing would've been Portia. Would being the operative word. She'd have revelled in such a room. She might not have liked it for long, what with having the attention span of an ant, but she should have liked it for a time. I imagined she'd have gloated over each succulent detail, pointed out the scenes of fornication, the general decadence, and then pretended to act all innocent. Such was the ways the Marquise ensnared her future lovers. Such was the way she ensnared me. Although in my defence, I was at a low ebb.

  It was odd that such a nonsense as a pair of curtains could recall a memory, but they did. The Marquise's curvaceous charms flittered around my head like two ripe melons displayed for all on too small a dish. I sniffed at my analogy. Something being apt did not carry the same clout when the object it was based on had died as they had. She might have been a pretentious fool, a woman of loose virtue even, but she never deserved obliteration. Nobody did. I might have grown to hate her, dislike her excesses and her arrogance, but there was a time when her charms appealed. Such a pity. Such a waste.

  I dragged my weary form over to the window, drew back the heavy, reinforced curtains and sighed. My view, which would have made for a splendid nocturnal vision was instead of a washed out skyline; I shut them twice as fast.

  The bedchamber's coffin lay nuzzled against the far wall beneath a cross of solid silver, not unlike the one I wore, with a long-haired figure in nothing but a loincloth nailed to its surface. The vampire, as it looked too ancient to be an Eternal, his limp head hung against his chest, appeared in a bad way. I could only imagine how fields and fields of such creatures toiled in the depths of Baltic Sea, striving to live but knowing they would not. Death was so hard to imagine, a tantalising image of permanence.

  I was unused to decor attracting my attention. As a ru
le, I had about as much interest in any given masterpiece as I did the contents of a sandwich: none. However, there was something different about that forlorn figure which almost made me feel – yes, feel. It was like a twinkling star deep within my chest that glittered for a moment, ebbed away, then died. I even put a hand to where my heart should have beat before withdrawing it with a tut of contempt. Yet the image drew me, so I stepped a little closer and looked again.

  I couldn't say why I thought such a thing, perhaps it was the hair, or the attitude of both it and that I compared it to, but the limp figure reminded me of the one Merryweather had called Jesus. An odd thing to have thought, but it did.

  I gave the cross, and he who adorned it, one more glance, shrugged, then decided there was nothing for it but to get ready for some rest. After first taking care of some business, anyway.

  I clambered atop the coffin lid, pried the sculpting off the wall; a dark shadow marked its once berth and hid the thing behind the curtains. It was his eyes that were the issue; they were too sad even for me.

  The en-suite bathroom was my next destination. It was of even more extravagant taste than the bedchamber. A copper bathtub, large enough for four, stood raised upon carved legs of ivory and gold inlay. I almost expected the thing to leap up and run away. To the side of the bath was a gold accessorised sink: gold taps; gold plug; gold chain; gold trimmed basin and several bottles of incense again trimmed in gold. I thought the whole thing in poor taste, a degree overboard for housing a stranger, but was glad of them, nonetheless.

  I ran the bath to the brim and in a fit of over indulgence added some of the bottled essences; juniper and jasmine if I wasn't mistaken. Whilst the water and scents combined in such a way as to make any courtesan jealous, I undressed. Making use of the facilities, I hung my clothes within an enormous wardrobe which held a large surplus of women's clothing – didn't they all – entered the tub, and relaxed. To my relief, the whole experience was rather soothing, what with the swirling oils patterning the water and heady scents revitalising the somewhat stagnant air.

  Unfortunately, Merryweather had also made use of the palace's luxuries. Apparently no longer asleep, he was singing in so loud a voice as to wake the dead. In my case, he kept them awake. So, after far less time than I'd wished, I exited the bath, slipped, so oiled was I, clambered into my velour-lined coffin and fell straight into the arms of oblivion.