Read The Count of the Living Death (The Chronicles of Hildigrim Blackbeard) Online
Authors: Joshua Grasso
“
Both
locks!” the sorcerer gasped. “The first and the second? I thought you merely tampered with one and ran away!”
“It’s not for you to know all the ins-and-outs of the thing, just to follow instructions,” he snapped. “Given time, and a certain maturity, you might have been told. But you couldn't wait! Well, continue.”
After the second lock, the voice changed again. It sounded even older, even stranger, but no less reassuring. Still kind, like someone he had known all his life and was simply playing a role. It told him another story, this time about the beginning of the world: how the first trees were planted by a wandering flame in order to satisfy its hunger and consume them. Very strange, and he certainly didn’t follow a word of it. And yet…
“I know you didn’t unfasten the third lock, otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting here now, would we?” the sorcerer said, arching his brow. “So what
did
happen?”
“The same as before…it asked me to consider, just consider, turning the key in the third lock. It said we could be friends. That it could offer me anything I wanted. It even knew about…Mary.”
“
Mary
?” Hildigrim repeated, uncertainly.
Somehow, it knew everything Leopold thought or felt. It seemed to know all about her, and it said, in a strange, roundabout way, that she could be his. But not without undoing the third lock. Only then could the box open and all his dreams come true. Come closer, it begged him…come closer and open the box. What good friends they would be if it could only see him and take his hand.
“That’s when I saw it,” the Count said, trembling with emotion. “With the first two locks off the lid could move just a hair—only so much. But even so, as I approached to unlock it, I saw…this eye, this terrible
eye
peering at me. But not human! It wasn’t human at all!”
“No, it isn’t,” the sorcerer nodded.
“My hand froze. I had already inserted the key in the lock. But I fell backwards and ran out of the room. It called after me, shouting my name. But I couldn’t listen. I just ran upstairs and hid in my bedroom.”
“And you left the key there?”
“Yes. Still in the lock. Is that bad?”
The sorcerer didn’t respond. Instead, he drained the rest of his cup and puckered his lips.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to go down there and find out,” Blackbeard said.
It took nearly a half hour to get to the armory, as the sorcerer walked extremely slowly. Not from age, mind you, but from a studied lack of concern. Whatever had happened, it could wait. Or perhaps it was too late already? Leopold nearly went out of his mind with terror, his legs breaking into a trot every few seconds. He kept looking back at Blackbeard to encourage him to pick up the pace, but the sorcerer merely ambled forward, bowing his head. At length they arrived at the door. The Count reached for the handle but the sorcerer slapped it away.
“You wait here,” he said. “I’m afraid I can’t trust you within the vicinity of the box.”
“Wait
here
? But what if…”
The Count waited. He paced up and down the hallway, the coolness of the floor penetrating his toes, slithering up his legs, making his heart falter. Not a sound! What was he doing in there? Should he go in? At least crack open the door and take the slightest peek…?
He pressed his ear to the door. With great effort he silenced every thought and suppressed his very breathing to listen. There—faintly now—a few words. Not in any language he was remotely familiar with. Only the sorcerer spoke, a few scattered phrases, like questions. No answers followed. Nothing but footsteps, the plodding sorcerer pacing to and fro. Listening to something. Did the box speak to him, too?
A short time later the door opened. Hildigrim Blackbeard’s eyes were grim, his face as tight and expressionless as a mask.
“Well…what happened?”
“The key is stuck in the lock,” the sorcerer said.
“Stuck? Can’t you—”
“I can’t—no one can. Once inserted it can only be opened,” he said, crossing his arms.
Leopold’s eyes bugged out. He moved aside to let the sorcerer pass, watching him walk briskly down the corridor.
“Wait…did you open it?” he asked, following.
“Not yet,” Blackbeard muttered.
“I don’t understand…please, can you just explain—”
“Explain! You want me to explain?” the sorcerer thundered, turning on him. “In two words or twenty? In prose, verse, or Latin? I could talk from one hour to the next, through the entire week, and even then, I would have scarcely
begun
my explanation.”
The sorcerer spun around and almost ran up the stairwell, going higher and higher until he reached the topmost tower. There, he peered off the ramparts into the distance, where the hazy mountains were touched by the first rays of light.
“Ever ask yourself how many of these you have left?” he said, almost to himself. “Any given sunrise might be your last…and who can say?”
The Count looked at the mountains, the fields, even at stray birds streaking past. What was he talking about?
“We all have a great Enemy nipping at our heels,” he answered, anticipating his surprise. “Sometimes you can see Him, just a flicker in the shadows—sometimes the merest brush of wind at your throat. But he’s there, all right. I can sense him even now.”
“A great enemy?” Leopold repeated. “Do you mean King Ivan the Fourth—the one they call Lord Hooknose? But I heard he was captured months ago. He awaits trial on an island off the coast of—”
“You fool, I’m not talking about
men
!” he snapped. “Men come and go. I speak of the true Enemy behind them, the one that counts out your years as so many raindrops. For they vanish just as quickly.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Which is precisely why you had no business going anywherey?ing any near that box!” he said, shaking him. “Don’t you know what you’ve done? But ah, you want to know, don’t you? That’s what kept you awake at night. That truth—the one thing you couldn’t demand as your right.”
Leopold hesitated. Of course he wanted to know, but the look in the sorcerer’s eyes…no, he didn’t want to know the meaning behind it.
“I’ll tell you what we locked away in that box, never again to be disturbed,” he said, pushing him aside. “The great Enemy himself—we
locked away your Death!
”
Leopold had no response to this statement. Terror, confusion, disbelief, and finally amusement came in turn. What ultimately came out was a slight chuckle—a polite one, of course, but a chuckle nonetheless. The sorcerer glowered in rage, as if his eyes could snatch the chuckle out of mid air and strangle it cold. The Count coughed the rest away, averting his eyes.
“I beg your pardon, but I don’t quite see…how could you lock away
death
? After all, people still die. My own father…is dead.”
“There are many Deaths in this world, no box can contain them all,” Blackbeard said. “But the Death I speak of is yours alone, the one that has accompanied you since birth…your most faithful, if hated, companion.”
Leopold fell into a stunned silence. Surely he didn’t mean…
“Ask yourself, when was the last time you felt sick? Even a passing illness? A cough—what about that? Hmm?
“Well, I’m sure I’ve had…I can’t tell you exactly when, or how long,” he said, growing desperate.
“It all dates from the locking of that box,” the sorcerer said, grimly. “Your father had me lock it away, with great effort, some fifteen years ago. It’s in there—the very specter of Death—powerless to spread mischief. Until you came along and opened the locks.”
“Not the third! I didn’t turn that one!”
“But you might as well have! Thoughtless fool; you’ve set his release in motion now, and nothing I can do—no, not even all the powers of magic can stop it. Your Death must come out.”
The Count began spouting out excuses, empty words, until even these failed him and he began to weep. So this was it. He would die. And all because of a moment’s foolishness, a selfish desire to best his father.
Look at me, papa, I can open the box! And nothing happened!
“Is there nothing we can do?”
“Everyone dies,” the sorcerer shrugged. “Even the box couldn’t hold it forever.”
“I don’t want to live forever. Just
today
,” he whimpered.
Blackbeard made a clicking noise with his tongue, deep in thought. This would be tricky. Death lived off its host like a parasite. Some Deaths were small; they only nibbled and pecked away at one’s life over sixty, maybe seventy years. Others were large and voracious; they gobbled it up in a few years, and in extremely rare cases, a matter of months. In general it was a relatively harmonious relationship, and Death, in order to protect its nourishment, would work hard to protect its host—blocking dangerous influences and whispering propitious thoughts in one’s sleep. His own Death (a relative wisp of a Death, he was told) had seen him throthe"ugh the most dire predicaments, when anyone else would have perished on the spot. Naturally his time would come…but he sensed he would live longer than this poor fellow, who might not see the morning.
“When it’s released, it will be hungry—ravenous,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Imagine a fast of over fifteen years! I’m afraid it will devour you on the spot.”
“Merciful fates!” he gasped.
“You can’t reason or bargain with Death,” he nodded. “It has a cunning, animal intelligence with only one purpose. It will find any way, endure any hardships, lay any traps to appease its thirst. It almost had you last night…”
Leopold wasn’t ready to accept this. No, there had to be another way. Of course: he could burn the box! Set both it and his Death aflame, if Death could burn, that is…but if it could eat, certainly it had some kind of substance. Or adopt an elaborate variety of disguises, so clever that even Death couldn’t ferret him out. Perhaps he just needed to hire an assassin, one that could intimidate even the most dreadful spirits of the supernatural world? Could Death be killed? Could even Death, in some manner,
die
?
“I know what you’re thinking, and
no
, it can’t be fooled, duped, or killed in any way you imagine,” the sorcerer replied. “Unless…”
“Unless? Unless what? Is there a way?”
Hildigrim Blackbeard paced in a circle while solving invisible equations in his mind. Mmm, yes, that could work, though it was an equally terrible proposition. But desperate times…
“Please! What is it?”
“
Someone
has to die…but it doesn’t have to be you.”
Lady Mary Bianca Domenica de Grassini Algarotti was told to stand like a goddess. Having never seen one in person, she did her best impression: she stood like her mother. With her right arm bent, she planted a balled fist on her hip (her mother always did this, especially when insulted). The other hung elegantly at her side, setting off a bright turquoise gown and an ermine sleeve, which, in this weather, threatened to give her heatstroke. Nevertheless she slightly inclined her head and smiled without smiling;
a smile is all in the eyes, not the mouth
, her governess informed her. So her eyes shone with what happiness she could conjure up after two hours of posing for a wedding portrait, to a man she had no interest in marrying, on an eighty-five degree day, without wind, in the hottest room in the palace. The painter, a man who spoke in three languages at once, would occasionally mutter: “
si, si
, you look very
charmante
, but maybe to move just like this…
oh, questa è bella
!”
“Are we done very soon?” she finally asked.
“
Momentito
,” he nodded, making the tiniest brushstroke.
Her thoughts wandered to happier subjects, such as the day she last saw
him
, and what he had said to her…or rather, what he had meant to say instead of what he did. Leopold brought her a glass of champagne (some of which he spilled on his shoe), and after apologizing, asked her what she thought of history.
“History?” she asked him, with a laugh. “All of itsid? From beginning to end? Or just the moment we’re in right now?”
“Ah—no, not all of it, that would be dreadful,” he grinned. “No, I mean
our
history, tradition and all that. What we’re supposed to uphold.”
“I always wondered how one held up history; it seems like you would need ten arms,” she said, laughing. “Perhaps our ancestors were built much sturdier than we are?”