The Count of the Living Death (The Chronicles of Hildigrim Blackbeard) (26 page)

“We’re not so different, my son. You can find many of these answers within you. But I do have something for you—a book. A small way to begin your ‘education,’ as you called it.”

“Where is it?”

“You’ll find it. Soon.”

He woke up immediately after that. Leopold supported him, since he had leapt up and almost lost his footing. He looked around in a daze, feeling the cool night air under the shining face of the moon. Leopold and Mary looked at him anxiously, worried that his condition was serious, almost fearing he wouldn’t wake up at all.

“You gave us quite a scare,” Leopold said. “You slept for hours.”

“What happened?”

They explained what Blackbeard had done, which initially Ivan couldn’t make sense of. How was that possibˀ daze, feele when his father had been with him? Or had he dreamed the entire thing? Or—

But there was no need to question or understand. Death must give magicians even more remarkable powers. He would have to take it on faith. Yes, for the first time in his life, he would believe in Blackbeard. His mother deserved no less.

“Now that you’re awake, we need to go,” Mary said, hauling him up.

“Go? Where?”

“Blackbeard’s study. We’ll explain on the way.”

Ivan grinned. Of course, Blackbeard’s study. Where else would he find a book?

Lucas found the party after circling the neighborhood for hours in the moonlight. He had happened upon (that is, stolen) a new coach and slipped them out of the city just before sunrise. No problem with the guards this time; they were simply waved through, though warned that “dangerous criminals” were on the loose and not to stop for anyone. Lucas counted himself extremely lucky that they neglected the customary search; it might be hard to explain the presence of a corpse that looked suspiciously like Hildigrim Blackbeard. He took the North Road through the woods following the Count’s directions to Blackbeard’s Tower. Actually, his directions were rather vague, merely consisting of “go north for 10 miles” and “look for a tower.” Lucas settled in for a long journey…at least he had memories of that kiss to fall back on.

Nearly two hours passed and still no sign of the tower. Lucas slowed the horses to a trot and inquired if he had taken the wrong road. No response; Leopold was arguing with his companions over Blackbeard’s directions.

“Are you sure he said ten miles? Going north?” Mary asked.

“Yes, ten miles exactly! He said we would see it from the road. Maybe we missed it?”

“How? We left the forest behind ages ago—there’s just fields as far as the eye can see,” Ivan said.

“Ask him again!” Mary insisted.

“He’s not here! He was here one minute, and the next…gone.”

Mary looked at the body of Blackbeard slumped lifelessly against the window. She felt an uncontrollable urge to shake him back to life, as if a good jolt could get them out of this mess.

“Can we turn around?” Leopold shouted to Lucas. “We must have missed it. I don’t know how…maybe we dozed off.”

“I
didn’t
,” Mary muttered.

“Of course not…forgive me, I’m just exhausted. Can I have something to eat? I’m famished.”

“Yes, here: we still have this loaf,” she said, unwrapping it.

Leopold took a tremendous bite from the loaf, expecting it to flood his senses with the crispness of the outside and the creamy softness of the middle. Yet chew after chew brought him no satisfaction or relief. Another bite and he remained hungry—even more so, since he had tried and failed to relieve his pangs. His eyes met Mary’s, who grabbed his arm impulsively and cried out: “Oh no—the curse! You can’t…”

With a sigh he returned the loaf, mentally completing her sentence. The curse and everything they were attempting assumed a new pitch of desperation. What if the΀nt y couldn’t find the tower? And even if they did locate it, what if the spell didn’t work? Did his spells ever work? Or was the nature of magic like a nesting doll, each spell opening up to reveal another curse inside another—and another? Now her life was ruined…and what could he offer in return? His love? Small recompense for a life she might have spent more fruitfully with someone else, raising children and grand-children as a celebrated matriarch. Or maybe she wouldn’t have married at all; she could have disguised herself as an actor and sailed to the Northern Colonies. She guessed his thoughts and squeezed his hand meaningfully.
Regret is pointless
, she seemed to say.
Stop thinking about what I’ve lost and remember what we’ve gained. No more fear or separation. Lives lived, however long or short, together
. He nodded but somehow couldn’t swallow it down.

The coach retraced its path while the passengers examined every stretch of field that passed the windows. Still nothing. Just fields, clouds, a stray clump of trees. Lucas slowed the horses, about to ask if they should turn back again—but shouts from the coach discouraged him.
I’ll just let them figure it out
…

“Leopold, there’s nothing here!” Mary exclaimed.

“I know, I know…but he specifically said ten miles. Maybe we should get out…look around?”

Mary shrugged without conviction. She asked Lucas to stop the coach and opened the door. A vast panorama of greenish-brown fields surrounded them, ending in a glorious horizon. Beautiful…but which way to go? Leopold headed instinctively toward a cluster of trees, which seemed—how could he say?—unusual. But no matter how hard he looked, or which way he viewed them from, they remained just that: a circle of trees. Nothing extraordinary about them.

“There’s no tower, no
nothing
around here!” Mary said, flinging out her arms. “We have so little time, and he’s toying with us…couldn’t even give us proper directions!”

“He’s never steered us wrong before,” Ivan cautioned. “If he said ten miles it must be ten miles. We’re just not looking in the right place. He said we could see it from the road?”

“Yes, right from the road—couldn’t miss it,” Leopold scowled.

“Let’s keep going, perhaps find someone to ask. Someone has to have seen it! Unless it just got up and ran away.”

They were returning to the coach when Ivan suddenly cried out. Before Leopold could ask “what?” Ivan swung him around toward the trees. Leopold squinted. Yes, a circle of trees—so what? True, they seemed to stand out at first, but now—

“Up there! Look!”

Leopold followed his finger above the trees toward the clouds. There, perched upon an invisible nothing, were two birds. They were sitting on thin air, wings tucked back, resting contentedly. But how?

“Zounds, it’s invisible!” Mary shouted, somewhere between joy and frustration. “That confounded fool! He might have told us!”

So that explained the trees. They were planted around the tower, the circle forming the exact circumference of the building. They sprinted toward the tower—Lucas following, not quite understanding why—in the hopes of finding an entrance. Leopold plunged blindly ahead, smacking face-first into the wall (it was closer than he initially judged). Once there, they began feeling all over its surface for a door, a window, something they could open or climb through. Cold stone passed under their fingers but little else; they circled the building fiveӀ plan or six times with no result. Mary cursed. Why was he doing this to them?

“I found something!” Lucas cried. “It’s…well, I don’t know what it is.”

They raced to his side, feeling along the same path. Strange: it wasn’t a door, exactly, but it did seem to be a portal of sorts, or at least a small opening.

“No, it’s a mouth!” Mary said. “Feel here, the lips…these are teeth. And here’s the nose. It’s a face!”

“And it’s moving!” Ivan exclaimed.

Who seeks entrance to the tower of Hildigrim Blackbeard
?

They stared at each other, wondering which track to take.

“Ah…his friends,” Leopold said. “I’m Count Leopold of Cinquefoil, and this is—”

Alas, the sorcerer is dead. We have taken all the necessary precautions. Only those of the Order may enter.

“How the devil did it…?” the Count whispered.

“Please, let us through!” Mary insisted. “He directed us here. He’s here with us…his spirit, that is.”

Then perhaps he can tell you the password
.

“Password? Now he has a bloody password? Where is he? Find him!” she said, ready to throttle the first person in reach.

Leopold looked around in vain. The sorcerer was nowhere to be seen. For whatever reason, he had abandoned them.

“When he spoke to you, did he give any clues?” Leopold asked Ivan.

“No, nothing…I could only guess…”

“Then guess! Take twenty guesses!” Mary said.

“Very well then,” Ivan said, his mind racing for a clue. Then he had it. Too simple, perhaps, but it might be just the word: “
Ekaterina
.”

Welcome home, master
.

In a split second, the tower became visible and a tremendous door creaked open. Mary’s jaw dropped, while Leopold and Lucas took a step back, half expecting the tower to come toppling down on their heads. Instead, the door remained open while the face, looking something like a gargoyle’s, gave a beneficent grin.

“How did you know?” she asked him.

“We have a lot in common,” he said.

The tower was little more than a winding staircase vanishing well above them toward the roof. There were no rooms to speak of, just a few small windows sending shafts of light crisscrossing in the darkness. They started up the stairwell, but after a few steps something shifted; that is, they soon found themselves walking down instead of up. They turned around and started up again, but within moments found themselves back at the entrance.

“Wait, let me try…” Leopold said.

He took two stairs and waited. Nothing happened. He took a third step and suddenly found himself walking in the opposite direction. The stairs had moved!

“A sick, sick joke—I hate him,” Mary muttered.

“There must be some trick to this…maybe if we take every other step…walk backwards?”

Leopold tried both and achieved the same result. Mary nudged him aside and ran full-tilt up the stairs, only to find herself hurtling toward the door. Fast, slow, backwards, sideways, crawling—the stairs sent them right back where they started. The tower was cursed in rather disparaging terms, as was Blackbeard and all forms of magic.

“I don’t know…can we even
see
a room up there?” Ivan said, squinting his eyes through the gloom.

“I don’t see anything up there but the roof,” Mary said. “But these stairs have to lead somewhere. Obviously to his study.”

“Why obviously? Maybe that’s the point…they don’t go anywhere, so we don’t need to go up?”

“Yes, that makes sense—for a madman,” she grunted.

Ivan paced before the stairwell trying to think like Blackbeard. If the goal wasn’t to ascend the stairwell, then what was it? Where else could they go? As he paced his foot kept slipping on a small rug at the entrance. On it was written “
welcome
!” in Thurgarian, a language from the East that had been adopted as a kind of thieves’ cant (which is how he learned it). What surprised him, however, was that the word was misspelled. The word should have read “
Patanzavooyem!
” but instead read “
Patoonzavooyem!
” This small error lead to an unusual interpretation; technically, it now read “hide the dirt” rather than “welcome.” Strange how language worked, turning a perfunctory greeting into meaningless nonsense.

“What’s so funny?” Mary asked.

“Oh, just this rug—it’s misspelled. If you followed its instructions literally you would have to—”

Could it be so obvious? He kicked the rug aside and revealed—a trap door. Everyone gasped. How appropriate: the tower went down, not up! Quite uncharacteristically, Mary embraced Ivan and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek.

“I’m beginning to think you’re a genius,” she said, smiling.

Ivan opened the door—no locks or magic tricks here—and revealed a stairwell leading into a dark room. They followed it down, finding a rather unkempt sitting room: a few chairs, a bookshelf, some leftover teacups and plates (scattered with crumbs, no less). A quick search of the room revealed nothing important, certainly no books of magic or anything resembling the magician’s study. Another dead end.

“Blackbeard! We’ve had enough of this! Where are you?!” Leopold shouted.

“Anything?” Mary said, to Ivan.

Ivan’s eyes ran over everything in the room, expecting more bizarre misspellings or something curiously just out of place. Here, however, nothing seemed artfully arranged; in fact, just the reverse. If he
had
left a clue it would have been swallowed up by the general disorder. He picked up a plate and inspected the leftovers: cheese rind, a few breadcrumbs, and an overpowering smell that lingered long after the meal.

“No doors,” Leopold shrugged. “I don’t understand…why is he punishing us?”