The Count of the Living Death (The Chronicles of Hildigrim Blackbeard) (25 page)

“Indeed, I know it quite well,” the sorcerer nodded, wistfully. “Black Roses. A very haunting tune, especially the way she sang it. I’ve never heard it sung by anyone else.”

“
Black Roses
, he said,” Leopold repeated, crossing his arms.

Ivan paled. Now Mary looked at him, hoping to see contradiction, even a hint of amusement in his expression. What she did see made the tears flow faster.

“Yes…he’s right. That’s it. You couldn’t have known that. How did you…”

“He’s
here,
damn you. I’m not making this up. I’m sorry to inconvenience anyone.”

A profound silence fell over the party. Leopold leaned against a tree and pulled off pieces of bark. Mary watched, eyes blurred with crying, seeing happiness once again pulled from her grasp. Ivan looked for Blackbeard, expecting to discern his outline in the trees, or against the sky. He still couldn’t bring himself to call him ‘father.’ Where was he? Did he regret not knowing his son, or even acknowledging him as such? There was so much he wanted to know. As usual, his father only spoke to Leopold. Even in the afterworld the fates were against him.

“Can’t we do anything?” Ivan said. “If Blackbeard is here, what does he want us to do?”

“He’s not very big on ideas at the moment,” the Count muttered.

 “If you would give me a chance, I
did
come back to help you,” Blackbeard insisted. “True, there is not much I can do about your current condition, but there is a way—”

“Yes, there’s always a
way
. What do I have to do this time? Grind up my grandmother’s bones?”

“Please, Leopold, listen to him. In fact, let me talk to him,” Mary insisted. “Ask him what I can do. I feel somehow that I have a role to play in all this. You’ve done your part; let me do mine.”

“No…I can’t ask anything more of you. I can bear this alone.”

“Alone?” she snapped. “You can say that to me—to my face—when my heart is breaking in two? You really believe that? Or is it some heroic twaddle you’re spouting to protect yourself?”

“I don’t…I just don’t want to hurt you anymore. I know your pain is mine, but how much do I have to share? How can I protect you?”

“I don’t need protection,” she said, defiantly. “I just need to help you. I need you to want me to help you.”

“I do,” he said, holding her. “But at some point, I have to free you…I have to let you go.”

“Not to interfere,” Blackbeard said, after clearing his throat. “But Mary is right. She does have a role to play, perhaps the most important role of all. There is another way, a more difficult way...and it is, I fear, the
only
way.”

Mary listened with rapt attention to the silence of Blackbeard’s words. She watched Leopold’s reaction, trying to see what he heard, screwing up her eyes as if she could somehow make it all out. Leopold sat with a dark expression; at one point he opened his mouth, possibly to question something, but immediately fell silent. After a few minutes it became clear he was no longer listening, either. He had turned away, staring into the distance where the sun wheeled slowly toward the earth.

“Leopold?”

“It’s nothing…a pointless suggestion,” he muttered.

“What is? What did he say!”

Leopold only shook his head, as if shaking off the very idea of Blackbeard.

“You can’t just…Ivan, make him tell me!” she exclaimed.

“Leopold, whatever he said, you can’t keep it a secret. If there’s any way, no matter how terrible, we have to know.”

“No, it’s nothing we can do anything about.”

Mary laughed in dumbfounded amazement.

“I never thought I could dislike you, but there are times when I see your pig-headed nature,” she said, sitting beside him. “I don’t like it.”

“Better you hate me than this,” he muttered.

“Blackbeard, make him tell me!” she shouted to the air around her. “Or tell me! Surely you have some way to communicate directly?”

“Why don’t you tell her?” the sorcerer asked.

“You know very well why. It’s abominable—even for you.”

“Leopold, she deserves to know. It’s not your choice to make.”

“Then you tell her. I won’t have any part in it. I won’t make her do it. In fact, I’ll do everything I can to stop her,” he said, turning away.

Blackbeard gave a gesture of annoyance, typical of his interactions with the Count. He then walked over to Ivan—who, of course, had no awareness of his presence—and touched his shoulder.

“Forgive me, Ivan,” he whispered, “I have taken far too many liberties with you. I trust this is the last.”

Ivan made no response. ct,He simply lowered his head and swayed idly from side to side. When he looked up, however, he wore a very different expression; Leopold knew it the second he saw him. He got up angrily and walked away, muttering something about “confounded witchcraft.”

“Mary, come here; let me explain it,” Ivan said.

“Ivan, what?”

She looked at Ivan and seemed to glimpse something else just beyond him. A face that peered out from the mist, kindly and familiar. Ivan’s expression and movements confirmed what she felt. It was
him
.

“Is that…you?”

Blackbeard nodded.

“Forgive me for this unusual method of speaking to you. Leopold, for quite understandable reasons, wishes no part in this. But I assure you there’s no other way.”

“Yes, tell me! I know I can do something—please let me be useful!”

“Mary, you have been more than useful; you have been our inspiration,” he said, with a gentle laugh. “And yet I must ask you to make the final sacrifice…”

Blackbeard took her hand with a fatherly grasp and told her everything. From a distance, Leopold watched her face…saw the flush of surprise, shock, horror…then a firm, almost defiant understanding. She said something back, her eyes cutting over to him. They shone, not just with tears, but with love and self-sacrifice. He couldn’t let her do this. It was unthinkable. It probably wouldn’t even work. But if it did…what kind of life would she have? How many years would remain?

Mary embraced Blackbeard, who whispered something in her ear. The setting sun ignited the forest, silhouetting the treetops and the embracing pair. When they parted, Mary walked briskly over to Leopold, who wanted more than anything to avoid this conversation. Yet as the details of her face danced out of the gloom and became everything he knew and loved, he reluctantly got up to meet her.

“So he told you?”

“Yes…and I understand why you couldn’t tell me. You couldn’t ask me to do it. But you don’t have to.”

“I can’t…I can’t ask you…”

He broke down, his head falling against her breast. She held him tight, whispering words that had no specific meaning to anyone but them. The sorcerer looked on, somewhat moved himself, though he would never admit it. Now that he was dead he was beyond such things. Though, truth be told, being dead felt enormously like being alive…other than not having to relieve one’s self every half hour (a perilous symptom of old age).

“You know what I told him,” she said, stroking his face.

“Mary, no—”

“What happens if I don’t? You’ll live out this cursed existence, neither alive nor dead, suffering miserably. No sacrifice is too great to avoid that.”

“Yes, some sacrifices
are
too great. It’s too much to ask.”

“No, it’s very little. Then nothing can part us, no Death or magic in the world. This will be the end of it.”

“But we don’t know how long…how much time you’ll have left. You might regret—”

“Regret saving your life?” she asked, lifting his face to meet hers. “Even as a child of thirteen there would be no question, no regret. I would give years of my life to save you; I would give the very last one.”

“It’s not as dire as you might think, Leopold,” Blackbeard said, approaching them. “She might have a long life yet. We don’t know.”

“You never know,” he said. “So…how does this work?”

“We need to return to my chambers; I have spells there that can assist you. I’ll guide you as much as I can. Once the spell is cast, you will share Mary’s Death; her life’s blood will be yours, your fates will be connected. Of course, as I warned you, this will inevitably shorten her life. Perhaps by half…perhaps only by a smaller percentage.”

“But we’ll die together?” she asked.

“The same day, the same hour,” Blackbeard said, with consoling finality.

“Then it’s settled,” she said.

“Mary, this is madness—I’m basically killing you to escape my fate. I know there’s no other way, but I can’t get it out of my head—”

“
Try
,” she said, giving him a stern look. “Because we’re doing it. I’m giving you my life—or death—or both.”

With a defeated smile, he accepted his fate.

Ivan woke up from an intense dream. His heart pounded against his chest and echoed in his ears. Yet even now, as he felt himself coming out of it, he could recall every detail, every word of their conversation. How much of it was true he couldn’t say; possibly he had concocted the entire thing. But dreams were never entirely fiction. What happened in dreams echoed in life itself, and in this case, would haunt him to the end of his days. For the first time, after so many years of failed attempts, he had spoken to his father. For the first time his father had spoken to him.

“Ivan, can you hear me?”

“Yes…is that you?”

“I’m here, but not for long. I just wanted you to know…I regret the way things turned out. I shouldn’t have given you up.”

“So why did you?”

“Your mother loved you. Perhaps she didn’t always make the right decisions, but her love was genuine. And I…I hardly knew you.”

“Did you know…I was your son?”

“Of course not; she insisted you were the Count’s. I believed her, I had no reason not to. Besides…”

“You didn’t want me.”

“No, hardly that. But those were difficult years for me. I lost many things. I might have lost you. You were safer with her.”

“With
her
?” he laughed.

“Even with her. You’re still alive—and you turned out quite well, despite her. I’m proud of you.”

“Of me? A criminal? A thief, a murderer—take your pick!”

“Bad choices, perhaps, born of my own bad decisions. I should have taken more interest in you. I should have known…”

“Why didn’t she tell you?”

“I assume because I had everything else she wanted: power, knowledge, reputation. Why give me you as well? It was the one thing she could deny me.”

“And why she taught me to hƀ—take yate you. So I would never find out.”

“Your mother was truly gifted—it’s why I fell in love with her. She outwitted me several times. This was her master stroke.”

“Did she love you?”

“Who can say? I once thought she did, but all her subsequent actions denied it. She loved
you
, that much is clear. Other men? I don’t think so.”

“So where does this leave us? You’re dead now. This is all too late to help me.”

“I hope not. I hope my love can still mean something, even from here. I hope it can help you forgive me.”

“Forgive you? How can I forgive what you didn’t know? It’s her I’ll never forgive. I wish
her
dead—I wish a thousand deaths on her head.”

“Don’t judge her too harshly. She convinced herself that I would destroy you. She thought her hate would make you strong, that it would protect you. And so it did…”

“Strong? Was that her intention? Or was it to torture me—
your
son? To make me suffer in ways that even you couldn’t?”

“I know she loved you. Twisted and selfish were her motives, but her heart in this matter was pure.”

“She made me think
that man
was my father. That man who despised me. Who wouldn’t even open the door. He kept me waiting there for hours…wouldn’t so much as look at me. She wanted me to go; she wanted to see me humiliated.”

“Only because she was, too. She felt it was part of your education.”

“And what might my education have been with you? What might I have learned under your guidance? You had so much more to teach me.”

“Yes…but as I said, fate had other intentions. There’s no questioning the will of fate.”

“Then why do you feel regret? Aren’t you just following directions?”

“It’s difficult to tell where choice ends and fate begins. Fate is set in motion by our actions; some we chose, others are chosen for us. In this case…I feel I had a choice.”

“I wish
I
could have chosen.”

“Yes, you became something of a pawn between us. Her ambition got the best of her. My love for her blinded everything else.”

“Even so, I wish I could have known you. It’s hard to see you without thinking of everything she told me. I can only see
Hildigrim Blackbeard
, whoever that is. I’ll never know the man you were.”