The White Wolf's Son: The Albino Underground Page 17

  Warily he returned to the cave entrance. Had he conjured that strange being back into existence? Riding towards him over the rolling foothills came the unmistakable figure in armor of glowing black and yellow, his face, as always, covered by his helm. This refusal to display his face was one of the things which had always made Hawkmoon suspicious. It was a Dark Empire trait. Yet here he came again, at another crucial moment. What did he want this time?

  Hawkmoon smiled bitterly to himself. All was doubt these days.

  The Warrior in Jet and Gold might be an agent of the Dark Empire, though he represented himself as an opponent. Would it even make sense to let the Warrior know he was here? He shrugged. Clearly the Warrior always knew where to find him. He could therefore have betrayed the survivors of Kamarg many times.

  Hawkmoon stepped out into the sunlight to greet his old acquaintance. The Warrior rode up to a few feet below him and stopped, dismounting from his heavy black horse. His arms were scabbarded. His attitude, as always, was casual.

  “Good morning, Duke Dorian.” There was a hint of concern in his deep voice. “I am glad to see you survived the destruction of Castle Brass.”

  “Aye, barely. I might have survived it better, Sir Knight, had I accepted your help.”

  “Well, Duke Dorian, fate is fate. A moment’s thought here, a quick decision there, and we might find ourselves in a dozen different situations. I am a simple Knight of the Balance. Who’s to say which actions we take are ultimately for the best or not?”

  “I hear there’s an uprising down in old Mirenburg.”

  “I’ve heard the same, sir.”

  “Is that why you are here?”

  The Warrior in Jet and Gold lowered his helmeted head as if in thought. “It might be one reason. Yes, perhaps you guess correctly. I am, as you must know by now, a mere messenger. I obey the Balance and, in doing so, serve the Runestaff.”

  “The Runestaff, eh? That mythic artifact. And what is this Balance? Another mythical device?”

  “Perhaps, sir. A symbol, at any rate, of the whole quasi-infinite multiverse.”

  “So it is Good against Evil? Pure and simple?”

  “That struggle is neither pure nor simple, I think. I suppose I am here to help you make a connection in the cosmic equilibrium.”

  “Tell me—have you served Granbretan?”

  “In my time, sir.”

  Hawkmoon began to move back into the cave. “A turncoat. As I suspected.”

  “If you like. But I said things were not simple. Besides, you have trusted other turncoats. D’Averc, for instance …”

  Hawkmoon knew the truth of this. Even he was considered a turncoat by some.

  “Do you serve what you believe in, Sir Warrior?” he asked.

  “Do you, my lord Duke? Or do you fight against what you do not believe in?”

  “They are the same.”

  “Not always, Duke Dorian. The multiverse is a complex thing. There are many shades of meaning within it. Many complexities. We find ourselves in a million different contexts, and in each situation there are subtleties. In some we are great heroes, in others, great villains. In some we’re hailed as visionaries, in others as fools. Were you a man of strong resolve when you refused my help at Castle Brass and allowed Meliadus to defeat you, destroying almost everything you loved?”

  Hawkmoon felt something like a knife thrust to his belly. He sighed. “You betrayed us. You stole the crystal when we had defeated the Mad God. What else could I think?”

  “I do not propose to tell you what you should think. But I assure you, I am here to help you.”

  “Why should you help me?”

  “I do not help you for any sentimental reason, but because you serve the interests of the Balance.”

  “And that purpose?”

  A pause. Then the Warrior in Jet and Gold said slowly, “To maintain itself. To sustain the equilibrium of the world. Of every world.”

  “Every world? There are others?”

  “An almost infinite number. It was into one of these I offered you the chance to escape.”

  Hawkmoon dropped his head in thought. “Worlds where our history has taken a different turn. Where the Empire never rose to power?”

  “Aye—and where that power has been divided or successfully resisted.”

  “Where I accepted your help in defense of Castle Brass?”

  “Indeed.”

  “What happened there?”

  “Many things. From each event sprang many others.”

  “But I won?”

  “Sometimes at great cost.”

  “Isolda?”

  “Sometimes. I told you. I do not serve individuals. I could not. I serve only the Runestaff and, through that, the Balance. Which determines only equilibrium. The Balance is destroyed and restored as it is needed. In one world you are its savior, in another its destroyer. Now it is needed again and must be remade. But there are those who would remake it and use it not in the interests of humanity but in their own evil interest.”

  “The Balance is not a force for good?”

  “What is ‘good’? The Runestaff serves the Balance. Some believe they are one and the same. Equilibrium. The form of justice on which all other justice is based.”

  “I was once told that justice had to be created by mankind’s efforts.”

  “That is another form of justice. That is within your control. But only fools seek to control the Balance or any of its components. It is no more possible to do that than for an individual to control a whirlwind or the tides. Or the direction in which Earth goes round the sun.”

  Hawkmoon was confused. He was not an intellectual. He was a soldier, a strategist. For most of his life he had been a man of action. Yet he knew in his bones that he had not best served his cause by refusing the help of the Warrior in Jet and Gold.

  “And you have brought me the crystal?”

  “A crystal breaks and becomes many crystals. I have brought you a piece of that crystal.”

  Oladahn, hearing the conversation, crept out of the cave and greeted the Warrior in Jet and Gold with a friendly hand. His red fur still bore some of the signs of the fire which had almost consumed him as he and the others fled Castle Brass through the old underground tunnels. But now he moved with all the energy he had feared gone forever.

  “What’s that crystal do, Warrior?” Oladahn asked.

  “It enables its holders to step in and out of this world and into many others. It enables you to move a whole army from one continent to another in an instant. It enables its possessor to challenge Fate.”

  “Much as the amulet I lost summoned help from other worlds?” said Hawkmoon, accepting the pyramid-shaped fragment. “I’ll need such help if I’m to fight the Empire again.”

  The Warrior seemed satisfied. “You’ll go to Mirenburg, then? With you to lead them, there is a good chance of the uprising succeeding. Mirenburg now produces the most advanced ornithopters and weapons.”

  “I shall have to seek the opinions of my companions,” Hawkmoon told him. “I have responsibilities. We suffered much in the fall of the Kamarg.”

  “You have my sympathy,” said the Warrior, remounting his horse. “I will return tomorrow for your decision.”

  Hawkmoon was frowning when he went back into the caves, the fragment of crystal clenched in his fist.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ELRIC WAS NOW convince that the child he sought was not in that Mirenburg where he had helped create a rebellion. He had returned to the Mirenburg he had first visited, which existed contemporaneously with the house in Ingleton where Oonagh’s parents waited anxiously for his news. Here he was able to telephone Mr. and Mrs. Beck. He learned from them that his daughter, Oona, had also disappeared into the Mittelmarch, looking for Oonagh.

  Mirenburg’s beauty had faded under Communism, but she was fortunate in that she had suffered little during the Second World War, having been swallowed by the Nazis with no more fighting than it took to gobble up C
zechoslovakia. Her great twin-steepled cathedral of St. Maria and St. Maria continued to dominate the center of the city, which was built on two hills divided by a river. The old city was chiefly on the east bank, and the new one on the west. Its great, brutal monuments to Communist civic planning, tall, near-featureless apartment buildings and factory chimneys, rose above the primarily eighteenth-and nineteenth-century building with its astonishing mixture of architectural styles, including many from Mirenburg’s last great shining period. Around the turn of the twentieth century her prince had commissioned some of the great modern architects such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Shaw, Wright, Voysey and Gaudíi to design new municipal buildings.

  Elric sensed an atmosphere of depression everywhere. Civil war had touched Wäldenstein. Rivalries between families of Slavic and German origin flared up as soon as the Communist heel had been lifted. Throughout the Soviet empire and its satellites time had frozen in the 1930s. Civil rights and a radical change in public consciousness had marginalized race and culture as a means of distinguishing peoples. Only in the backward regions of the world did these things continue to inform the views of the majority.

  The war had been short; the UN had interceded with help from the von Beks as mediators. The von Beks had goodwill in Mirenburg, though their family had not lived there for many years. Mirenburg had suffered many attacks by would-be conquerors, from the Huns to the Austrians and the Germans and, the last time, from her own people.

  It became characteristic of the post-Soviet wars that ancient rivalries, encouraged by those who wished to divide and rule, culminated in the grudges only now being settled. Industrialized, turned into one of the most productive cities in the Soviet empire, exporting the Popp, the only car to rival the VW, Mirenburg had been a showcase. Vehicles, plane parts, light weapons, poured from her factories. Today she produced Fords for the local market. Wäldenstein’s labor was cheaper and her pollution laws were not yet as rigorous as Germany’s, so the cars were produced at a more competitive price. Thus her great chimneys belched black smoke and glowing cinders into the sky night and day, and her ancient houses grew dark with the soot of over fifty years. Elric had known the city since the fourteenth century, but he had not known it to stink so much since 1640, when the river had run dry and sewage had filled the bed.

  Elric employed what skills of divination remained to him in this world, and became convinced that Oonagh had returned to this, her own sphere, assuming she had not been killed in the catastrophe whose realities he had originally witnessed underground.

  He had not been pleased to abandon his horse or his clothes en route to this sphere. Samson would be well cared for, however, in Mu-Ooria. Elric never felt entirely comfortable in the dress of our own period, which was why he affected evening clothes so often, but he had no need for secrecy, at least. Here he was recognized as a member of Mirenburg’s old ruling class, and it suited most citizens to address him as “Count.” Not that they were entirely unsuspicious of him. The local legend of Karmingsinaugen was still remembered as involving the most sensational crimes reported in Wäldenstein in the nineteenth century, and the role was always attributed to him by the tabloid newspapers, who believed he might share his ancestor’s tastes. He remembered how in earlier centuries they had pursued him through the narrow streets, brands flaring in their fists, baying for his blood. In those days he had still possessed his sword, and on occasions it had suited him to release the power and feed off their uncouth souls. But of late he found commonly available medicines to sustain him. His taste for raw life-stuff was only a memory. He remained amused, however, by the evident fear of him some superstitious souls betrayed.

  Yet for all his familiarity with the citizens, not one could tell him where the little girl might be. “We would have heard, Count Zcabernac,” they insisted, “if an unaccompanied English girl were living here.”

  “But what if she appeared to have her father with her, say, or a couple of uncles?”

  “I’d know. So would many others.” This from the overweight landlady of his pension. She had suggested he return to England, perhaps leaving an e-mail address or telephone number where he could be contacted.

  Then, just as he had begun to inquire about the availability of flights from Munich, something happened which made him determined to stay. He was sitting reading the Mirenburgerzeitung in a café not far from his pension when he looked up and saw a tall man making his way hastily across the busy Ferngasse, barely missed by a clanking number 11 tram. He recognized the man at once as Klosterheim, whom he had last caused to be imprisoned in that other Mirenburg. Full of alarm, Elric immediately set off in pursuit, through the streets and alleys and into the old thieves’ quarter, now the home of bohemians and students. Klosterheim disappeared into a traditional hostelry, Raspazian’s, and was ordering a drink at the bar when Elric walked in and seated himself in the shadows near the door.

  If Klosterheim was in this world, decided Elric, then there was every chance he had come here to look for Oonagh. It was very likely that Klosterheim had escaped from the St. Maria and St. Maria and come directly here. It suggested the girl was not yet in his power. At last Elric might discover why Klosterheim and von Minct pursued the child and why all the omens had been so terrifying.

  Elric decided to confront Klosterheim before there was any chance of losing him again. He rose slowly and walked to where the gaunt man stood, paying for a Rottbier.

  “Good morning, Herr Klosterheim.”

  Klosterheim turned but did not seem surprised. “Good morning, Count. I had heard that you were here again. Have you retired from—um—’showbiz’?”

  “My family has some old associations with this city. Being a sentimentalist, I visit whenever I can. And you, Herr Klosterheim? Are you here on some sort of evangelical business?”

  Klosterheim seemed to enjoy this. “Of sorts, yes.”

  “I believe I just missed you in Ingleton.” Elric said nothing of their mutual deceptions in that other Mirenburg.

  “An unusual coincidence. As is this one.”

  “You were looking for my daughter’s granddaughter, I understand.”

  “We had some idea she could help us find an easy way into the Mittelmarch.”

  “You have always succeeded before, Herr Klosterheim.”

  “My capabilities are limited of late.” The gaunt man offered him a sour yet oddly humorous look.

  “I hope you’ll let her parents know when you find her,” Elric said. “I spoke to them yesterday. They are naturally anxious.”

  “Naturally.” The grey lips touched the ruby sheen of the Rottbier.

  Elric could tell that Klosterheim, his gaunt features tensing, his dark eyes hard and bright in the depths of his skull, would have been quite happy to kill him if there had been some means or excuse. But here the long-undead ex-priest was forced to remain civil. He looked up in some anticipation, however, as a huge man entered the bar and greeted him. It was Gaynor von Minct, of course.

  This unregenerate Nazi had pursued Elric through his thousand-year dream since the eleventh century and was now grinning down on him ferociously like a wild beast about to kill its prey. He scowled when Elric offered to buy him a drink. The tension between the three men was so considerable that the barman went over and murmured significantly to the manager, who was serving a customer at the far end of the bar. Elric saw the manager pick up his mobile phone and put it in his hip pocket, as if ready to call the police.

  Gaynor von Minct also noted this. “Perhaps we should talk elsewhere,” he said. “Would you care to meet later, Prince Elric?”

  “Where would you suggest?” The albino was amused. He often felt this amusement when his sixth sense warned him of danger.

  “How about the Mechanical Gardens? Do you know them? They are fascinating. There’s a little coffee place there, by the Steel Fountain.”

  “Would four o’clock suit you?” Elric hoped he could get some further clue from Gaynor. The man was arrogant enough to
reveal himself by accident.

  “Four would be perfect.” Gaynor did not wish to be humiliated in public, so did not offer his hand, but he smiled that thin, unpleasant smile of his as he turned back to speak to the glowering Klosterheim.

  Mirenburg’s famous Mechanical Gardens were public enough to be safe. Making sure he was not followed, Elric returned to his pension. Here he armed himself with an old black, battered Walther PPK .38 automatic. The two men would gladly kill him if the opportunity arose. He took his lunch at the Wienegatten and wrote the notes he would send to Mrs. Persson at her poste restante in Stockholm. He had developed this habit since they had first met in the early part of the twentieth century, when they had become good friends, possibly lovers, though Mrs. Persson was, as always, discreet about her liaisons.

  The Mechanical Gardens had first begun operating in the 1920s, the creation of the Italian Futurist Fiorello De Bazzanno. During the Communist period they continued to function, even if a little run-down. The futurist-deco style of the gardens was reminiscent of a period when the machine inspired a distinctive aesthetic. The large park, on the far bank of the river, covered a number of acres and was filled with mechanical men, trees, flowers and animals, some of them, like the gleaming Tyrannosaurus rex, truly monstrous. The park was dominated by an enormous, jovial grinning head made entirely of machine parts, with rolling eyes nodding back and forth as if in approval. Everything moved by systems of cogs, levers, belts and wheels. Most used electricity, though a few were still steam powered. There was a small funfair, with Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, “whip,” helter-skelter and a few small roller coasters, though these were not the chief attraction. Everything was mechanical, including the old-fashioned automat, the coffee shop and even the souvenir shop, where big robot “assistants” talked to customers by means of prerecorded tapes and gave change after notes were inserted into their mouths.