Into Eternity (The Eternals Book 3) Read online

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  An unsettled sleep was disturbed from within long before it was from without. But it was the rapping upon my coffin lid that drew me to full wakefulness. At first, I ignored the sound hoping it a servant who might go away. But they did not go away. Instead, the rapping became more insistent, louder, desperate for attention. The raps soon evolved to knocks, then became explosions. In truth, so luxuriant was my sleeping arrangements, they might have been bombs going off and I thought I should still only just have heard them. And so it was with reluctance, I answered.

  I released the inner security catch, a trick stolen from Portia, and watched the coffin lid, all purple velvet and further gold trimmings, latch outwards to a figure dressed in nothing but a loose shift. For a moment, I thought my dreams answered, and rubbed at my eyes like a surprised child. But, when I removed my fingers, it was violet eyes that regarded me, not emerald. How much difference a shade made.

  “You were expecting someone else?” Violante purred.

  “One always has hope.”

  “Aww, poor little Jeany-weany. Do you still sulk?”

  “I mourn.”

  “Mourn? You have nothing to mourn. You are safe, loved and as tasty as ever.”

  She licked her lips in such a lascivious way it left a sparkling, slimy trail like the residue of a slug. I fiddled with the coffin's catch hoping to return to swift sleep but Violante had one hand on the lid.

  “What more could a man wish for?” she continued undeterred. “You've even made it into father's inner chambers without having your head removed. I never imagined you'd make it into our home. Especially after what happened on the Riviera,” she added with a smirk.

  “That was a long time ago,” I said.

  “Wasn't it all,” she purred, a kitten in heat.

  “I suppose. I don't dwell on the past.”

  “That's not what I've heard.”

  “And what have you heard?”

  “Oh, just this and that.”

  “From?”

  “Him and her.”

  “You never change always playing some pathetic game or another.”

  “I thought you enjoyed such things.”

  “Like I said, I don't dwell on the past.”

  “What a thing to say to a former lover. The best you've ever had, too.”

  “According to whom?”

  “Mother.”

  “You really are sick. Only two Italians would discuss the sexual adventures of a man they'd both slept with.”

  “I'm only half Italian.”

  “Which half?”

  “The best.”

  “Well, it's either the look or the smell because the brain's got nothing to do with it.”

  “Says a man oiled up and smelling of female heaven.”

  She had me there, and I sucked in a breath at my nakedness.

  Violante just grinned all the more. Life was always such a game to her. She offered a taloned fingernail to the straps of her see-through top, sliced one then the other, and allowed it to slip to the floor like a discarded rag. In a pathetic attempt to appear demure, she strove to cover her assets and pouted a coquettish look; she resembled a carp.

  “Should I open the curtains?” she asked.

  “I expect enough people have seen you in the nude to render it unnecessary.”

  “Ouch! You are a bitter Eternal lord these days.”

  “Was I not always?”

  “No, not always,” she answered.

  And just for a second, I saw a flash of the unblemished beauty I'd once loved so fiercely. But it was just a flash, and only a second.

  Gorgon's daughter lifted a petite foot to step into the confines of my bed and made to accompany me for the evening.

  In another life, another place, I would have allowed such sport, welcomed it even, relished the mischief of avoiding detection, but it was not that place nor time. Violante was at best an inconvenience and at worst explosive.

  “Not tonight, my dear, I've some laundry to attend to.” The outside me laughed, whilst the inside despaired.

  Violante infused that cast of crimson she had earlier and stepped back from my little slice of death. She eyed me with a cold gaze of violet steel, unconcealed contempt suffusing her face, bent to collect her shift and left in a swoosh of displaced, fragrant air; the same as I was wearing, which was odd.

  Much to my surprise, there was no slamming of doors, none of the semi-Latin curses she so often used when first I'd wronged her, just the distant sound of tears. Her father's overbearing walls soon swallowed those echoes of her upset. Women!

  I shook my head and was about to lift myself free of the coffin; I'd never have slept, anyway, when a lowered hand offered help. I thought it a servant and took it; it was not.

  “That could have gone better,” said Merryweather.

  “Who cares,” I replied.

  “You should care.”

  “Well, I don't.”

  “That is obvious, my friend. But like I said, you should.”

  “If I don't ask you why will that spare me your preaching?”

  “No. I tell you this for your own good as you obviously know nothing about women. And I base that on several hundred years of observation, not just tonight.”

  I rolled my eyes but didn't give him the satisfaction of starting an argument. With the casual grace of a predator supreme, I wandered to the window and opened it for some air. I received nothing to freshen the lungs.

  Looking out over a lighted world should have enthused me. The sun, the sky, the mountains and steppes should have reinvigorated my tortured soul; I couldn't have felt more deflated. My world of usual night always made everything so much more – well, black and white.

  Merryweather sidled over, draped a weak arm about my bare shoulder and shook his head in a mirror of my own. “You should have taken her,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked. Every pathetic twitch of his face itched to tell me, anyway.

  “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, especially an Italian one.”

  I did not like nor enjoy the accompanying sick wink.

  “I've not heard that saying, and she's only half Italian.”

  “It's ancient,” Merryweather sighed. “Almost as old as me, in fact. Almost.”

  “And I'm to take it that if I'd taken her and then disposed of further services, I would have fared better.”

  “Considerably, my lovesick fool. I can say that, can't I? You still don't want to rend me limb from limb.”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “That's something, I suppose.”

  “Although I must confess, I'm none too keen on you being so close whilst I'm naked.”

  “Control yourself, Jean,” he snickered. “And, yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “You would have fared far better. Not only have you spurned her for another, you have implied that she isn't even worth a quick you-know-what. And let us not forget that it isn't the first time.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, you can be such hard work.” Merryweather banged his head with a certain regard for not bruising it upon a pane of glass.

  “Well, it's not that I don't appreciate your input, but I think I know my way around the fairer sex.”

  “If you say so. But I'd watch my back if I was you.”

  “What, more than I already am?”

  “Good point. But in my time, I've found women to be so much more resourceful when it comes to being rebuked. As I said, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Whereas a man would stroll up like he was king of the world, give you a whack, and then stroll away, a woman, being so much more delicate than ourselves, would go about things with such cruel subtleties as a man is incapable of comprehending.”

  “You obviously haven't been with the same women as me.”

  “No, thank heavens, I have not. And, I was about to suggest that a woman will gain her revenge by more surreptitious means.”

  “That's a big word.”


  “Oh, I know many big words, I just don't think it's big to use them.”

  Merryweather said no more. He unwrapped himself from my shoulders and propped his elbows on the windowsill. After wafting some unseen hindrance away with his handkerchief, he inhaled as though breathing in all that remained. “Ahhhh,” he said, releasing said breath.

  “Can you not do that in your room?”

  “Can't you?”

  “Last time I looked, I was in my room.”

  “Last time I looked, you were in Violante's,” said Merryweather. The dandy gave me one of his best raised eyebrow looks and then tottered away. “Violet is so not you,” he commented, as he closed the door with a click. “So, not Jean at all,” he repeated outside, then trundled away.

  Chapter Fifteen

  -

  Pristine

  Merryweather's exit left a ghost of a conscience in the room.

  “You've done it again,” it seemed to say.

  “When will you learn?” it whispered.

  “What a disappointment,” it hissed.

  “What a disappointment you are, my boy.”

  The voice was so like Merryweather's, but not. Despite the spectral tones, there was only one man who could say so little, yet hurt so much: my father. I searched about expecting him to reveal himself at any moment. The bruised room remained empty, though, and that was how I wished it to stay.

  I dressed at speed and vacated Violante's room quicker still. Once stood outside in the silent corridor, free of the claustrophobic purple decor, I contemplated hunting her down and apologising. Whether I meant it or not, it would've been the right thing to do, but decided against the idea. She had always been hot-headed, so like her mother; she would not forgive. It pained me to admit, but Walter's assumption of some metered out rebuke would be correct. Best I allowed Violante to cool her heels.

  I followed the corridors in no particular hurry to be anyplace soon. In fairness, it was not an unpleasant meander. I hoped I might fluke my way back to the mural, study it further, but each new turn was as similar as the last. I wouldn't have known the place if I'd fallen face first into it.

  Except for the occasional servant who deferred to my rank by standing against the wall and bowing, I saw nobody. Well, that was not entirely true for I saw guards. I wasn't sure if that was a strange occurrence or not in the palace of a monarch, and a monarch, like Vladivar, who professed to be of a military standing. However, to have so many deployed seemed excessive. All the larger rooms had two guards stationed outside, every major junction, the same. The fellows were polite enough, though, I could've had no complaint at their civility, but their eyes troubled. I'd always put great faith in a person's eyes; my father had taught me that. Where a face could deceive, a body taught to relax when a situation demanded it, the eyes never lied. Every one of the Baltic guards looked haunted. Oh, they puffed out their chests and drew back their shoulders, soldiered their arms and stuck out their chins, but they feared me, or my being there. I had no doubt of it. Like portraits on a wall, wherever I stood, they observed my every move. With that in mind, I headed outside.

  The palace was huge. I hadn't realised how huge until I attempted to exit it. Being stubborn, as I was, I refused to ask directions and stumbled and bumbled around until I found a solitary, arched door of an unadorned and plain nature. For once, the doorway was unguarded and surprisingly unlocked. It was through this door I stooped to leave and emerged out onto the palace battlements. The view, I had to admit, was spectacular.

  My room had had an accomplished vista, the battlements had a total one. Whatever there was to be seen could be. I ventured that with a spyglass, I could have made out the fluttering flags of all the major residencies of Europa. Perhaps, even the Orient, although that was an assumption, my having never been there.

  I made my way along a two-foot ledge until reaching a north west conjunction. There I stopped to admire the scene, Gotska Sandön standing proud of the empty sea like the great bunion I'd first regarded, despite its great distance. I was too far to make out any detail, the polar bears might even have been waving back for all I knew, but it was refreshing to have a point of recognition.

  The space between the Baltic outpost and myself was one of an ocean bereft of life. In truth, it was the same in almost all directions for as far as the eye could see. From so high, it troubled even more than when I'd paced it. If I'd had forever to look upon it, as Duke Gorgon, I should have knocked the palace down and rebuilt it elsewhere. I supposed it fortunate time was so short and none would gaze upon such ruin for long. It was a blessing I tried to convince myself of but failed.

  I imagined the Duke to have received quite the shock when those fields of former friend and foe were revealed. I had likened the Eternal graveyard to fields of kelp beneath the cold sea, but from on high, they were so many deceased flowers. Fields and fields of the slaughtered, and in the most inhumane of fashions; how the humans must have hated our kind. I wondered if the crosses would rot and fall exposed to the elements as they were, or if the planet's demise would take them first? Morbid thoughts for a morbid scene, but ones I could not help dwelling upon. Again, I fingered the chain about my neck, the cross inveigling itself into my subconscious.

  The many fissures that still gasped steam were clearly visible from my elevated position, the Baltic Sea scarred with the things. There was no wonder it had run away; the seabed was more sieve than solid. Who'd have thought an ocean could vanish, it almost beggared belief, but it had, and I felt sure others would follow. If they hadn't already that was.

  I stood there lost in my private dreamworld, the updrafts dragging loose strands of black hair about my face. I cogitated over the past with such intent it took a great abnormality in the scene to break it. But there was, and it did. Something bright stood out against the detritus and death, something like a fallen star which still fell.

  I leant forward and shielded my eyes against the imperfect light as if the extra two feet would bring everything into focus. It didn't, but the white light paused and a form took shape amidst the chaos of those ragged, dried depths: Grella.

  There was no point calling out, he'd never have heard, so I partook in that rudest of pastimes, I stared. Grella stood hands on hips and looked about as though choosing a lover's gift. He paced back and forth between the upright crosses, tapping here, kicking there, before finally deciding upon one. At that, Grella placed his arms about one sturdy looking erection and hauled it from the very bowels of the empty sea. The wood had settled deep into the sodden ground and he must have extracted a good two feet of it before it came clear of the mud. The whole episode perplexed? Grella then hoisted the thing across his broad shoulders, took another look about like a compass finding true north, and then wound his way in the opposite direction, the cross bouncing against his back.

  “Rather like Jesus, don't you think? Trotting off into the wilderness and all that.”

  “It's rude to sneak up on people, Merryweather.”

  “I didn't sneak; I've been stood here for ages.”

  “Ah, that makes it okay then.”

  “Of course. If I'd persisted in my sneaking, then you could have accused me of it, but I didn't, so you can't.”

  “But you just said you were sneaking.”

  “It was a slip, a typo, a misdemeanour, a relaxation of self.”

  “Oh, I can't be bothered to argue,” I said, and turned back to Grella. The king had gone.

  “I don't suppose we'll ever see him again,” Merryweather mused.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Just his expression.”

  “How the hell could you see his expression from here?”

  Merryweather tut-tutted and replied with a shake of the head, “Because I saw him as he left, you idiot.”

  “Then, why didn't you come and get me?”

  “I did.”

  “No, you didn't.”

  “Yes, I did, but you weren't there. I even lowered myself to asking
the staff, for what it was worth, they're a sullen bunch. However, despite all the obstacles set to hinder me, and by a most convoluted passage of events, I now find myself here. Wish I hadn't bothered,” he mumbled.

  “All right, all right, I admit, I went for a wander.”

  “Is that an apology for placing a slight on my character?”

  It was a good job I wasn't drinking as I'd have spat it on him. After a pause, I just said, “No.”

  “Good job, because I wanted to talk to Grella. Having to search for you, though, has blown that little idea right out of the water. Not that there is any water!” He laughed at his own joke and slapped his leg. “Ah, not in a laughing mood today? Not that you're ever,” he muttered. “Anyhow, old pale face appeared rather unhappy, too,” he said, with an exaggerated grimace. “You could be twins.”

  “Where do you think he's going?” I asked, ignoring his blathering.

  “South.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he's headed South.”

  I shook my head and leant out as far as I could to peer around the buttress and give the opposite horizon a good hard stare. There wasn't a snowflake in sight.

  “Do you think that's part of his plan?”

  Merryweather just shrugged. “Who knows? I suppose we ought to give him one day's grace if nothing else. We'll look pretty stupid if he comes back and we've gone. I suspect you would not want that.”

  “I wouldn't,” I agreed.

  “One day, then.” Merryweather held out his hand.

  “One day,” I said and shook it.

  “Good, then it's agreed.”

  “Good,” I replied, as we both slipped into a sullen silence.

  The image of the empty sea drew me in like nothing had in years. There was something about those wrecks, the hidden death, the facade of ocean waves disguising what lay beneath. One would have thought that ocean beautiful as had I all those centuries ago. The sea's true nature, that of a smothering blanket, cast a shadow over one of the few things I'd enjoyed in my youth. To look at, anyway.