True (36 page)

MAXSQUEEZED HIS FINGER ON THE TRIGGER BUT AS THE ICE shifted beneath his feet he steadied himself instinctively before he fired. While his father raised his knife above Isabella's squirming form, preparing to deliver the coup de grace, Max aimed at his chest. There was another sharp, cracking sound and the ice dome began to collapse. As he pulled the trigger a sheer block hit the floor beside him, upending the ice plate he stood on, throwing him to the ground. He fired skywards through the gaping hole in the fractured dome, as more blocks of ice crashed on to the dais, collapsing it beneath Isabella and his father.

Max heard Isabella cry out as he hit the shifting ice. The crunching impact knocked the gun from his hand. It skittered away from him and fell into the widening schism of dark water, eight feet across, that separated him from his father and Isabella. Helmut had also lost his knife, but it lay only a few yards to his right, across another narrow fissure. To Helmut's left, Isabella lay in a pool of blood, perilously close to the rushing water that prevented Max reaching her.

His father glanced at the knife, then at Isabella and Max, and finally at the exit. Helmut's only way out was by walking round the schism but Max could head him off. There was another break in the ice by the exit behind Max, but it was narrow and the ice was continually shifting. Max considered diving into the water or running round the schism but Helmut would reach either the knife or Isabella before he got close enough to do anything.

'I won't let you leave without Isabella,' Max shouted to his father. 'If she dies, you die.'

For the longest moment his father wavered between the knife and Isabella, then he moved towards her. As Max stood helplessly on his half of the divide, watching his father bend over Isabella, he dared to think he might help her. Then Helmut slid Isabella towards the water. 'Get off me!' she screamed. She tried to kick him and roll away, but with her wounds she was defenceless.

Helmut looked at Max. 'I understand the current is particularly treacherous here. It'll pull her under the ice and out to sea.' His father smiled. 'Max, the question you have to answer is this: do you stop me or save her, as you tried to save your mother?' The smile broadened. 'I think I know your answer.' He rolled Isabella into the swirling, freezing water, then headed for the knife and the exit.

THE SHOCK OF THE ICY WATER EXPELLED THE AIR FROM ISABELLA'S lungs. Immediately she felt the pull of the current and tried to swim against it. With two good arms it would have been difficult, but with only one it was impossible. She kicked and clawed her way to the surface, gulping for air as the current dragged her to Max's side of the divide. It didn't take her directly to him: it pulled her diagonally across the schism, away from him.

As he ran to intercept her, she twisted herself towards the approaching ice shelf to where one of the tiers of seating extended over the swirling water. As her wounded shoulder hit it she braced herself for the pain, but in the cold she felt little. With all her remaining strength, she reached up and hooked her good arm over the extended seat, anchoring herself against the whirling current. Then the pain struck again, and she saw the icy water turn pink with her blood. The rational part of her hoped the cold would slow the flow, but the pain was intense. Just hanging on with one arm was excruciating, and the saturated reindeer coat was so heavy.

Max stretched his arm along the seat and tried to reach her. His lips were moving but she couldn't hear anything. She stared at his mouth: 'Hang on, Isabella. I've got you.'

She tried to call to him, but she had no more breath. Even as his hand edged towards her, she felt her arm slipping off the seat. She tried to regain her hold, but her body wouldn't obey her. She felt -- or imagined she felt -- his fingers brush her arm. Then she slipped off the seat and the water reclaimed her.

This time she couldn't even struggle as it sucked her down and swept her under the ice. She searched for an opening in the frozen celling, but all she could see was her own reflection and a shimmering white light beyond. The gash in her cheek was so deep and red. She watched herself smile at the absurdity of worrying about her appearance when she was about to die.

The pain faded. She was slipping away, her lifeblood leaking into the cold relentless water.

Then the pain returned with a hot, searing surge. Strong arms ripped her from the current's numbing embrace. She blinked and felt herself steered towards a bright light, an opening in the ice. Her first instinct was to struggle against the force that was wrenching her back to life and pain, but she was too weak. She felt an additional push and suddenly she broke through the surface of the water and her lungs filled with air. There was a final surge beneath her and she found herself gasping on the hard, cold ice. Fighting for breath she looked up - and tried to scream. She had surfaced in the gap beside the exit and Helmut Kappel stood over her. In his hand he held the curved, razor-sharp blade.

AS MAX HAD PREPARED TO PUSH ISABELLA OUT OF THE WATER HE HAD seen the dark shape looming overhead, and known it was his father, but he had had no choice: Isabella had to surface now or drown.

There was only one way to end this.

He summoned all his strength, pushed her out of the water and on to the ice ledge, then took a deep breath and fell back into the water. Before the current could take hold, he pulled with his arms and kicked hard, projecting his body out of the water as far as he could. As he broke the surface he blinked against the light and saw his father looming over Isabella, knife in hand. Time seemed to slow. Max landed heavily on the frozen surface, slid past Isabella and yanked at his father's ankle, upending him like a skittle. Helmut's smile of triumph turned to shock as he fell to the ice, dropping the blade. Still gripping his father's leg, Max slid back into the water, pulling his father with him, taking rapid shallow breaths, expelling the nitrogen from his bloodstream. When the water closed in, he held the struggling Helmut as close as a lover, pinioning his arms to his sides. Then the relentless current dragged father and son beneath the ice.

ISABELLA WATCHED MAX PASS DIRECTLY BENEATH HER, GRIPPING HIS father. She forced herself to her knees and crawled after him until the water had carried him beneath the wall of the chapel. Then she clambered to her feet and staggered out of the exit. She looked in the direction of the current, to where the lake joined the distant channel to the sea, but all she could see was an unbroken expanse of ice.

The current seemed to be accelerating but she followed Max as far and fast as she could, watching him glide beneath her. Eventually she fell exhausted to the ice and saw him look up over his father's shoulder. He was smiling at her -- a serene, peaceful smile. At that moment, when everything trivial had been stripped away, she knew, with a certainty she had never experienced before, that she not only loved but forgave him. True love was forgiveness.

But it was too late now. As she watched him slip away from her, she cried out, with all her remaining strength: 'Max! I love you, Max! I love you!'

Phoebe, the bridesmaids and some of the braver guests ran to her across the treacherous ice, but she was oblivious of them. Even as Phoebe wrapped her in a dry coat, Isabella stared out across the vast frozen lake and screamed her love for Max, hoping he would hear her before he died.

UNDER THE ICE, HELMUT KAPPEL STARED INTO HIS SON'S IMPLACABLE eyes and realized it was futile to struggle any more. Even if he escaped Max's steel grip there was nowhere to go. As Isabella's muted cries of love reached his ears, an expression of peace came over Max's features and Helmut knew he was looking into the face of a man unafraid of death.

The bitter pill of contempt burst on his tongue. The man he had raised as his heir had become his nemesis. However hard he had tried to deafen Max to love's siren call, his son had still succumbed to it. Even at the point of death, Max believed that love gave his life meaning. The fool probably thought he would live on in Isabella's heart. But she, too, would eventually die and then what? Max still didn't understand that love was just an ingenious trick of nature -- a sick delusion to ensure that humans reproduced.

But as his lungs. Ballooned in his chest and the impulse to breathe became impossible to resist, Helmut felt his certainties slip away. Suddenly he realized that for all his dreams of immortality, he was going to die alone and forgotten, with no one to grieve his passing. He would vanish from the face of the earth as though he had never existed.

As extinction approached, cold and dark, overwhelming panic welled within him. Suddenly he coveted Max's certainty and peace. He gripped his son, staring into his face, desperate to feed off his serenity and courage.

The first reflexive gulp of icy water made Helmut gag and convulse, but Max's hold was firm. As he choked on the water, Helmut saw a spark of compassion in his son's eyes, but that provided him with little consolation. In his heart, he felt only black despair as the water enveloped him in its dark, cold embrace.

Then there was nothing.

AS HIS FATHER'S BODY FLOATED AWAY, MAX BECAME ACUTELY AWARE of the water flowing past and under him. He felt lighter, almost buoyant, as if the icy current was washing him clean of his past sins. He had the bizarre sense that he was reborn, and the irony that this should come at the point of death made him smile.

He thought of Isabella's final declaration of love and sadness penetrated his meditative calm. He didn't deserve it, but he wanted her forgiveness, even though there wasn't time now to earn it. All he could do was forgive himself.

He consoled himself with the sudden insight that her feelings for him weren't what mattered. True love was about loving unconditionally, not just being loved. It was about giving, not receiving. His love for Isabella had made him strong, and proved that love wasn't something to be feared or controlled with a drug, and giving it endowed life with meaning. His mother had understood that, and now he did too. He was grateful that Isabella had reminded him of it before it was too late.

He wondered how long he had been submerged. He had slowed his heartbeat and wondered if the cold had done the same with his metabolism, further reducing his need for oxygen. Or perhaps it was just hypothermia -- or even that he had entered the early stages of oxygen starvatio'n and was experiencing hypoxic euphoria. Either way, he felt calm. The ice appeared to clear for a moment, revealing the bright sky above. When he looked up he thought he saw the distorted silhouette of an eagle following him. Then the image disappeared.

He looked around him and realized the ice was thicker here, the water darker. Ahead there were three channels. He wondered which led to the canyon-like inlets at the side of the lake, dead ends where his body would lie frozen and undiscovered for months, if not years - and which led through the narrow fjord to the sea, where the ice gave way to the river that flowed into the Gulf Stream.

As he pondered this, not really caring which route he took, a white figure rose from the depths beneath him. He recognized his mother and knew that hypoxia had taken hold. She smiled and held her arms wide -- so different from the avenging presence she had been when he had last seen her. He was glad she'd come for him, and wanted to reassure her that he understood now what she had tried to tell him all those years ago in the boat off Hawaii: without love we are nothing.

As though she could hear his thoughts, her smile broadened and she placed a finger over her lips. Then she took his hand and led him down the left channel beneath the ice. The light ahead told Max he was approaching death, but he still wouldn't relinquish control of his body and surrender to the impulse to breathe. I did that once before and I'll never do it again, he thought. He felt relaxed, at peace, ready to die. He closed his eyes and let his mother's presence guide him. The numbing cold seemed to grow marginally warmer, and he imagined he was returning to the womb. Then his mind folded in on itself and he felt no more.

odin used valhalla's single satellite phone to call for help, but because it was New Year's Day there was a delay in the rescue services reaching them. Confused guests wandered around the palace. A dazed, bloodstained Warren Hudsucker was seen hovering around the boiler-house, asking where the chapel had gone. Some just stared out silently to where the helicopter had crashed into the lake. Others sat in huddles, asking each other what had happened. Klaus Kappel and the Kappel Privatbank clients retired to their rooms to pack. They wanted nothing to do with the police and the other authorities when they arrived. Even as they waited to evacuate the palace, the gaps in the ice were closing and refreezing, healing the lake's wounds.

Isabella's wounds would take longer to knit. A doctor stitched her face and temporarily sutured the gash on her shoulder, but she didn't care about the pain in her body. All she could think of was Max's once warm flesh cooling under that sheet of ice. A solitary eagle soared above the lake, heading for the fjord and the sea beyond. She wondered if it was the same eagle she had seen the day she thought Max was going to shoot her. Perhaps it could see Max under the ice, had witnessed his death, as she had once thought it would witness hers. An almost unbearable sadness weighed down on her. She felt as empty, flat and desolate as the lake itself. She only hoped that Max had died knowing she loved him.

Phoebe sat down beside her and held her hand. 'You okay?'

She nodded, feeling anything but.

'What the hell happened,Isabella ?' Phoebewhispered . 'Why can't I recognize anyone's face? What do we tell the police or whoever comes to get us?'

Isabella was too tired to explain anything, and she wasn't sure she wanted the police to know about Venus or Ilium, or that she had drugged everyone last night. The fewer people who knew of the drugs' existence the better -- it was too easy to abuse them and had caused enough heartache. What was the point in telling people anyway? Helmut was dead, and she would only drag her father's name through the mud. In time she would decide what to do. But not now.