Into Eternity (The Eternals Book 3) Page 5

  It was the faint whiff of lavender that gave the truth away. Aurora had smelled what we could not: her own kind. I saw a look of relief cross Grella's face as he caught a whiff the same moment as I. The king would have followers again. Merryweather's own countenance remained manically impassive, who knew what raged in that warped mind. I could think only that the Zeppelin had come down in the Arctic weather and that maybe, just maybe, my darling Linka might lie ahead.

  We saw Aurora from a distance, our sharp eyes fixed on her fluttering, cloaked form. She stood with others and I felt renewed hope. When we reached her and saw her true companions, I was the first to baulk.

  Chapter Six

  -

  Snowmen

  There were perhaps twenty figures, snowmen, one might have called them in a long forgotten past. The figures stood at contorted angles as though blown askew and frozen in time, piles of inhuman sculptures. If it were not for the purple trails tracing the contours of their forms, they might have remained hidden against the white backdrop of the Arctic plains, except for those with tanned faces.

  “That's an awful waste of lavender essence,” Merryweather said, but I was already on the move.

  As the wind, I skirted the perimeters of each individual hoping and praying that the face of the one I loved was not amongst them. I called her name like a pathetic child as I passed from one to the next. The others must have thought me mad. Perhaps, I was? Where identification was impossible, the snow having heaped upon the poor souls as a freezing second skin, I scraped with talons to reveal the horrified faces below; Hispanic; Nordic; Sunyin monk; the weak, they'd all died alike, in pain.

  I checked each of them until presented with one last body. I approached the last figure with an iron knot for a stomach. The snow had piled in drifts against it like silt on a riverbank, only the head left uncovered and recognisable of form: it was not Linka, for those wide eyes were not green.

  Nausea took me, and I almost fell to the floor, my relief so overwhelming. I staggered, placed trembling hands on my knees, and took a deep breath. How I'd thought it would be she. My dignity regained, I took a pace back, surveyed that last snow-covered victim, then leant in again to brush the snow from their form. I did not stop until I'd revealed every inch of the person beneath. When I had, violent, tumultuous thoughts of retribution set upon me. It was none other than the face of he who would never have harmed a fly, the father of the many: the old Sunyin looked so sad, so unlike himself. It affected me; the others backed away.

  I had never and probably would never lose myself to instinct as I did at that moment. If an army had stood before me, I should have torn them to pieces; if those within the Super-Zeppelin had shown themselves, I should have done worse. In those accumulated moments, those seconds that turned to minutes, there was never an Eternal like me. For the first time in my existence, I was the man the others hinted at. My anger knew no bounds. My eyes swam with blood. The world trembled, and it had every right to. I was no longer Jean the melancholy, oft-times nonchalant Eternal lover, but something savage, something uncontrollable. I was not myself, or for the first time, was?

  I did not realise what or why I had done what I did and I did not care. More surprising still, it was Merryweather who snapped me from my rage, as only he could.

  “Er, Jean, you might want to stop.”

  Something splashed at my feet.

  “Jean, you better look down.”

  Something cold and liquid poured into my boots

  “Jean, water.”

  I was getting wet.

  “Jean!”

  A voice cut through the crimson curtain, a dagger to the velveteen. I opened bloodshot eyes to a night filtered red. Someone stood above me one hand on hip the other waving a handkerchief in an effort to get my attention. It worked. The dandy gazed down at me with a face askew with surprised concern.

  “Jean, stop, or you'll bloody drown!” he bellowed.

  So, just like that, I did.

  I stood in a crater perhaps ten feet across and four feet deep which filled with a semi-liquid ocean. When the water pooled at my knees, I reacted. It was not a moment too soon as the ice cracked and split and I dived for solid ground.

  “Thought I'd have to get wet then…”

  I heard Merryweather's words but did not respond.

  “…jump in after you,” he prattled. “I'd have done it, too. I would, you know. I'd have done it for my old mate Jean.”

  “This is not the time,” a firm but gentle voice interjected.

  “Hang on a minute, he's been crying,” Merryweather said in a startled tone.

  Aurora ignored the Britannian's words and opened her arms to embrace me; I ignored her, brushed passed her kindness to stand before my old friend.

  Sunyin hung all wrong, manipulated to insight anger. He stank of Nordic perfume, its lavender stain spread across his revealed chest. He looked pathetic, weak, everything he was not. I gazed upon him in something akin to despair, a soulless being's last hope for redemption stolen. Sunyin, the gentle one, they'd wronged him. And in that instant, I understood his need.

  “Why is he doing that?” Merryweather queried.

  “I do not know,” Aurora replied, as I clawed at the monk's frozen exterior.

  “Shush, the pair of you,” Grella commanded.

  The snow had set like iron about the old man's frame. Even to one such as I, it was an effort to remove him from his snow cocoon, but I did because I had to. Something drove me to not allow he who was so much more than I to remain in such an undignified pose.

  It took time, for I worked with care, but time was one thing an Eternal was blessed with, or cursed, dependant on your point of view. When the old monk was almost free, Grella materialised beside me to hold him in place, so I might chip the final remnants of his imprisonment from his ancient frame. Once completed, I gathered the old monk up in my arms and walked away.

  “Where's he going?” Merryweather muttered.

  “I have no idea,” Aurora replied.

  “Should we ask him?”

  “I would not,” Grella suggested.

  “Has he gone mad?”

  “No,” Grella replied.

  “How can you be certain?”

  “Sir Walter Merryweather of Britannia, sometimes a man must do what is right, and that is what Jean does. I do not know what that right is, nor do I pretend to understand it, only in so much that I shall follow wherever it leads to make that doing complete.”

  “Should we be doing the same?”

  I caught the back end of Merryweather's mumbling, Aurora's response, but had neither the inclination nor words to reply. I cared not if they followed, nor if I was left to my own devices. I didn't give a damn for the other entombed bodies, the last of the Hispanics and those who I supposed were Serena's personal, Nordic entourage, only for the man in my arms. The sound of crunched footsteps in my wake was incidental to my mission, so I ignored them, and the occasional questions they asked. I walked on and on with but one goal and nobody would stop me.

  * * *

  I walked in silence for many days, not once stopping, not once caring if the others still followed. Across the plains of snow and ice, leaping fissures, hopping from one broken ice sheet to another, I progressed. The waterways that became more frequent, those channels of life in the ice, did not deter me. I suppressed my natural inclination to steer clear of any liquid larger than a glass of water, I owed the old monk that and dared any creature, orca or worse, to stop me; it would have meant their death. My booted feet headed away from cursed Hvit and towards that which I eventually glimpsed.

  At first, the sun was only a rippling red trim to the ice, a ribbon of something other than darkness. However, little by little, step by faltering step, that orb of blood-red death revealed itself. If it contained heat, I could not tell, but I hoped and I prayed. And then one day when I least expected it, I saw that which I had walked so far for: water pooled on Sunyin's eyelashes instead of ice. At long, long la
st, I could close his misted eyes.

  I stopped then, halted my funeral march, and for the first time realised I was not alone. The others were with me, and I was glad.

  “He is at peace now,” Grella spoke in a manner befitting the old monk's stature. Aurora wrapped her arms around my waist and even Merryweather patted me twice on the shoulder.

  “I wish to bury him,” I said.

  “Where?” Grella's one-word response.

  “Shangri-La.”

  “But how will we find it, Jean?” Aurora asked.

  “I do not need to; they will find their father. They will find us.” I said it with such belief, such an absolute certainty, the others just nodded their agreement. “I shall carry their father until they do.”

  “And we shall see you go undisturbed,” Grella added.

  “Thank you,” I said, for I did not know how else to reply.

  * * *

  We walked within the ruby rays of an ever-expanding ruby light, the celestial body which provided them looking somewhat more insipid than last I remembered. If the sun sensed my thoughts, who knew, but that's when the earth first shook. Perhaps, I had angered it with thoughts of weakness and it sought to prove me wrong. Perhaps, not? To be honest, I no longer cared.

  We stepped from the polar plains to the more certain footing of land, not a minute too soon, the first cracks in the ice splintering out behind us like a cobweb of broken, white veins, our footprints vanishing in their birthing.

  Aurora hurried to a higher vantage point, Merryweather at her side as if to watch the ensuing chaos unfold. I supposed it all quite an adventure for one who'd seen so little of the world. Grella and I stood at the periphery of the chaos as the ocean pierced the ice and that which was solid became liquid. If there was any doubt Hvit had been salvageable, then at that moment Grella realised it not, his eyes distant. I, on the other hand, was glad to know it gone, although I did not say so from respect.

  “I suppose the ice does this every year,” I said, for want of having nothing better to say.

  “No, Jean, it does not,” replied the king of the Nordics, as he turned his back upon his past and swept away.

  “Come on, Jean,” called Merryweather from high above. “You're missing the show.”

  I ignored him and let the ocean kiss my boots. Sunyin should have liked that as I held him there before the majesty of nature. I hoped so, anyway.

  “Er, Jean, you might want to see this.”

  Without acknowledgement, I took one last look and set off after the others.

  “What do you make of that then?” Merryweather chuckled, as I approached.

  From the height the others had attained, the ocean appeared more becalmed, and I easily spied the dorsal fins of a pod of orcas breaching the dark waters.

  “Fear not, Walter, they cannot harm you from here,” I said.

  “What?” he replied.

  “The orcas.”

  “I'm not looking at the sea wolves, you idiot. Over there,” he said flapping his arms to the distant horizon.

  I did as bade; I wished I'd not. The sun was bigger in the sky, perhaps ten times so than when last seen. It did not rage with the power of a tenfold god, rather wept as a diluted puddle of blood. It was as though someone held a net curtain over it, so lacking in coloured vitality was its celestial form. The sun's epidermis pooled rather than glared, the sweat of its labour to live running from top to bottom to drip into some unseen cosmic night. Like the Marquis, bloated and the lesser for it, the sun died.

  “That's not good,” said Aurora.

  “It is the end of all,” her brother replied in sombre tones. “We are witnessing our doom.”

  “Bugger,” said Merryweather scratching his head.

  I couldn't have put it better myself.

  “How?” I asked.

  “I do not know,” Grella replied. He took his sister's hand and gave her a half smile. “I am sorry, Aurora.”

  “For what, brother?”

  “That you have attained freedom with barely enough time to see our existences ended.”

  Merryweather fluffed up like a chicken at that, his feathers well and truly ruffled. “Speak for yourself,” he snapped. “I'm not going down without a fight.”

  “Well spoken, Sir Walter,” Aurora said. “I too shall not go down without a fight.”

  “Good girl, we'll think of something.”

  “Have you not seen it, the sun expands. The star's life-force drips away into eternity before our eyes. We have no future.” Grella spoke the words with neither promise nor hope in his voice.

  “There's always a chance,” Walter replied.

  “For what?”

  “For something to change,” Merryweather winked in my direction.

  “Do you really think so, Walter?” said Aurora, her hair glowing ruby in the sunlight.

  “Yes,” he replied with renewed optimism.

  I did not share his belief as at that moment the tremors which rocked the arctic ice stirred beneath our feet. The planet rebelled. Great boulders clattered around us and I cursed the bloated ruby orb under my breath.

  Merryweather and Aurora were so engrossed in their conversation, they barely noticed. A great chunk of granite might've struck them if not for Grella swiping it away with the back of his hand. It might have knocked some sense into the Britannian. There was always next time.

  “I'll tell you one thing,” Merryweather blurted, tearing himself from Aurora's attentions to address Grella.

  “What?” replied the would-be king who kept his eyes fixed on the falling debris.

  “I'm glad we're rid of that bloody lavender perfume, it's even worn off you, Your Majesty.”

  I couldn't be sure if Walter taunted, or just stated what I myself had thought since we'd left the snow corpses behind. The lavender scent that all Nordics but Aurora permeated had dissipated into the distant horizon and with it Grella's own.

  The king furrowed his brows, his head twitched. He gave an almost imperceptible sniff, but I noticed it. Grella appeared to dislike what he smelled.

  “We should make for the top, and quickly,” he announced, with a subtle change of subject.

  Before any of us could reply, he was off up the mountainside, a white blur dodging the destruction. Aurora shot off after him, Merryweather, too, with an accompanying huff. I adjusted Sunyin's deceased form to lay him with care across my shoulders and set off in pursuit.

  They did not get far. The mountainside was not high, and I soon reached them.

  “Oh, my,” I heard Walter say, as I came to an abrupt stop at his side.

  “Oh, my,” I echoed.

  Merryweather gave a look of agitation at my supposed mockery, but upon seeing my shared shock, returned his gaze to the horizon.

  The world was coming apart at the seams. Northern Scandinavia fell to pieces within plain sight. Mountains crumbled. Great rifts spliced the earth in twain. Forests vanished like so many collected toothpicks flicked from vertical to horizontal. Magma spewed from great faults in the landscape. In veins of lava, a veritable apocalypse was in the making. It shocked me, a man who'd seen whole mountains shift, but the effect on Aurora was startling. She took her brother's hand, then reached for Merryweather's, which he did not refuse. I stood apart wishing upon wish that Linka was there to hold my own.

  “It will never be the same, will it?” Aurora said.

  “No,” replied Grella.

  “This is the end.”

  “The beginning of the end,” he corrected.

  Grella's face looked cast of a stone far more solid than that on which we stood. The sun's ruby rays glinted off his impassive, porcelain features; the king burned, and the world burned with him.

  “Do you think we can still catch them, Jean?” Aurora asked.

  I shrugged.

  “That is less than convincing.”

  “I'm sorry, Aura, I don't know what you wish to hear.”

  “That you believe,” she said.

&nbs
p; I saw the first cracks of doubt flicker across her porcelain features, the first signs of defeat.

  “Do you really think the Super-Zeppelin can escape this?” she asked, turning back to her brother. She sought reassurances but received none.

  “I do not know. I cannot see it, but then, I was one for ceremonial pasts, not visionary futures.”

  “Do you think they've already left?”

  “No,” he replied with some assuredness. “Why else do what they did with the bodies in the snow if that was the case. They could have dumped them without ever having landed.”

  That rankled as I hadn't even contemplated the Marquis and the others actually having set foot ahead of us.

  “I believe they require something, or someone, to aid their departure. If indeed they can?” he added, with a half-hearted smile.

  Aurora's head slumped to her chest, and I felt for her that displaced girl who was only just finding her way in the world. Grella released her hand and instead wrapped a strong arm around her shoulder. I thought he sensed it, too.

  I returned my gaze to the ruby-coloured destruction and sought to make sense of what remained. One might have said I brooded, and I supposed I did. That was just my way. It was Merryweather that tore me from those dark depths in the most emphatic of ways.

  “I wish Jean's parents were here, they'd know just what to do.”

  “What do you mean, here?”

  “Here,” he retorted, “as in, not up there with them.” He pointed to the sky a frustrated look on his face. “I'll bloody well kill them both when I get my hands on them,” he snarled, then stopped. His hand shot to cover his mouth. “Oops!”

  “Oops, indeed,” I replied.

  Walter ran.

  Chapter Seven

  -

  Litter

  Merryweather took flight and sealed his guilt.

  If ever there'd been doubts as to his true capabilities, his heritage, that whoosh of fleeing dandy dispelled them. Like a flaming arrow shot by God, he burned up the landscape. I pursued.