The White Wolf's Son: The Albino Underground Page 18

  With the old spires, domes, roofs and turrets of Mirenburg in the background, the art deco world of cogs, levers and engines presented by the Mechanical Gardens had a quaintness of its own. Great cogs resembling faces flashed and grinned. Massive hands constructed of rods and pistons waved overhead. The watery sunlight reflected off steel, brass and tin, and a mechanical organ played Strauss waltzes and polkas.

  Most of the people in the park at that hour were couples who looked as if they had been coming there for years. At the Steel Fountain, Elric got himself a cup of café au lait and a rum pastry, which he took to one of the green tables overlooking the lawn which ran down to the river. Soon Klosterheim arrived. He wore a black trench coat and a wide black hat. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets. Gaynor was next, his big body swathed in a herringbone raglan coat, a feathered Tyrolean hat on his head. Underneath his coat was a suit of dark green tweed. The two men went to the automat and returned with coffee. Klosterheim’s long, bony hand reached out for the bowl and began to place lumps of sugar in his cup. Von Minct sipped his unsweetened. “This place seems changeless. I remember when I first came. It had just opened. Mussolini had completed the March on Rome, and the king had asked him to become prime minister. Splendid days, full of optimism. How quickly the golden years go by! Are you enjoying your pastry, Prince Elric?”

  Elric placed his fine, long-fingered white hand on the lattice metal of the table. “You seemed to suggest you wanted to talk about the missing girl,” he said.

  “My dear Prince, you certainly like to get straight to the heart of the matter. I like that, sir.”

  “I would guess you have not found her.” The crimson eyes narrowed beneath half-shut lids. “You think she’s somewhere here, perhaps?”

  “You are presuming a great deal, my lord Prince,” said Klosterheim. “What if we, too, have only the young lady’s safety at heart? Given that she no doubt trusts you, we thought she might reveal herself to you, whereas …”

  “Indeed?” Elric sat back in his chair. He fingered his chin. He still seemed amused. “So you hounded her through the Mittelmarch in order to ensure her safety? And now you think I’ll be bait for your trap?”

  “Hounded?” said Klosterheim. “That’s a strong word, sir!”

  “I am here to warn you to give up your pursuit.”

  Von Minct became suddenly alert. “You’re not exactly fair to us, Prince Elric.”

  “Perhaps.” Elric saw no reason to give them any information. “So you expected to find her here? And planned to use me as a lure to bring her out of hiding!”

  “We were informed we might find her at Raspazian’s; that is all. But it was clear she had never been near the place. He said the Fox had her.”

  “He? Who informed you?”

  “A fellow wearing black and yellow armor. He did not leave us his name.”

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “We were lost on the moonbeam roads. We are not entirely skilled in negotiating those roads in this universe, and he helped us.”

  Elric knew of the Warrior in Jet and Gold. Their paths had crossed once or twice, to their mutual benefit. Why would the Warrior confide in Elric’s enemies?

  “Did he propose exactly where she could be found?”

  “He said to seek her on the wheel.” Klosterheim indicated the Ferris wheel. “Can you think what she might be doing there? One or the other of us has watched the wheel most of the time.”

  Elric was disbelieving. Von Minct and Klosterheim must be lying to him. He said nothing. He had hoped to learn something from them. Doubtless they had hoped even more of him. Leaving his cake uneaten, he finished his coffee and rose. “I’ll bid you good afternoon, gentlemen.”

  They were nonplussed. They had expected to benefit from the meeting.

  Elric left them talking to each other in low voices. As he walked out of the Mechanical Gardens he felt disappointed. Had he failed to note an important clue to the child’s whereabouts? He glanced back and was surprised to see Klosterheim and von Minct paying their money and pushing through the Ferris wheel turnstile. Did they expect to find Oonagh in one of the compartments, after having waited fruitlessly for so long? Should he follow?

  No. They were as thoroughly desperate as he. Yet he waited and watched them. Eventually they came out through the exit. They had no one with them.

  Elric, summoning some of his old witch-sight, did his best to read the air around the giant wheel. It was agitated, possibly populated. He thought he saw other shapes, perhaps even outlines of other cities. Looking around, he could tell that only the great wheel had an unusual quality. He knew it must have some function in this puzzle. But was he going to become as obsessed as his enemies and spend weeks watching the thing?

  The park closed at five, and uniformed men on bicycles blew whistles to herd customers out. It would open again in the evening, with the added attraction of a cinema show in what had been the park’s original kine-theater.

  Elric returned to his pension. He had an unconscious sense of what was happening to Oonagh and why Klosterheim and von Minct were here. Nothing was clear, but his instincts told him that there was something wrong. Something that wouldn’t save Oonagh, however, because that pair would act on whatever erroneous idea they had. She was still in mortal danger. The problem remained how to find her and get her to safety. That was going to be a difficult task, he admitted, smiling to himself as he changed for dinner. He tied his bow tie, adjusted it at his throat, straightened his sleeves a little and was again the dandy who had once graced the boulevards of Mirenburg and Paris in the Belle Epoque. He had been acquainted with half the great poets and painters of the day. All the artists wanted to paint his portrait, but he had allowed only Sargent the privilege. The painting now hung in a certain apartment in London’s Sporting Club Square and had never been exhibited. It had been reproduced once in the Tatler for July 18, 1902, in a general photograph of the artist’s studio. It showed a man no older than Elric seemed now, adorned almost exactly as he was, in superbly cut evening dress.

  In this costume he had once gone upon the town. But he had not always been found at the parties of the rich and powerful nor in the boulevard cafés for which Mirenburg was famous in that era before war had disrupted her pursuit of pleasure. Sometimes he might have been glimpsed in the cobbled alleys of the Deep City, or even climbing up the narrow gap between buildings to make his way easily and with great familiarity across the rooftops.

  But those days were over, Elric reflected with a little self-mockery. Tonight he would dine conventionally enough, at Lessor’s in the Heironymousgasse.

  And then, he thought, he might make a visit after hours to the Mechanical Gardens.

  He dreamed. This time he led an army against a powerful enemy. All the beasts of Granbretan were massed against him, but in his mirrored helm he rallied his troops to attack. And he was Corum— alien Corum of the Vadhagh— riding against the foul Fhoi Myore, the Cold Folk from limbo … And he was Erekosë—poor Erekosë— leading the Eldren to victory over his own human people … and he was Urlik Skarsol, Prince of the Southern Ice, crying out in despair at his fate, which was to bear the Black Sword, to defend or to destroy the Cosmic Balance. Oh, where was Tanelorn, sweet Tanelorn? Had he not been there at least once? Did he not recall a sense of absolute peace of mind, of wholeness of spirit, of the happiness which only those who have suffered profoundly may feel?

  “Too long have I borne my burden—too long have I paid the price of Erekosë’s great crime …” It was his voice which spoke, but it was not his lips which formed the words— they were other lips, unhuman lips … “I must have rest; I must have rest …”

  And now there came a face, a face of ineffable evil, but it was not a confident face—a dark face. Was it desperate? Was it his face? Was this his face, too?

  Ah, I suffer!

  This way and that, the familiar armies marched. Familiar swords rose and fell. Familiar faces screamed and perished, and blood flo
wed from body after body—a familiar flowing …

  Tanelorn? Have I not earned the peace of Tanelorn?

  Not yet, Champion. Not yet …

  It is unjust that I alone should suffer so!

  You do not suffer alone. Mankind suffers with you.

  It is unjust!

  Then make justice!

  I cannot. I am only a man.

  You are the Champion. You are the Eternal Champion.

  I am only a human being. A man. A woman …

  You are only the Champion.

  I am Elric! I am Urlik! I am Erekosë! I am Corum! I am Hawkmoon! I am too many. I am too many!

  You are one.

  And now, in his dreams (if dreams they were), he felt for a brief instant a sense of peace, an understanding too profound for words. He was one.

  And then it was gone, and he was many again. And he yelled in his bed, and he begged for peace.

  And it seemed his voice echoed through the entire city, and all Mirenburg heard his sadness and mourned with him.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I WASN’T SURE exactly what happened after the Sebastocrater was shot and it started raining, except that Lord Renyard, Lieutenant Fromental and Prince Lobkowitz all left the summerhouse and ran after me at the same time with Lady Oona. As I labored for the high ground, Oona’s Kakatanawa (suddenly awake) began yelling what I guessed were their war cries just as a ball of bright silver light appeared over the ornamental lake, where von Minct and Klosterheim fell back, blinded.

  There was a horrible roaring noise in the distance, and it began to rain more heavily. Oona picked me up and set me squarely on her shoulders. Everyone was shouting. Then suddenly there was silence, stillness. I looked back. The whole scene—summerhouse, Kakatanawa, Sebastocrater, guards—had frozen, as if something had stopped time again. But Oona was in a hurry, and she and I were unaffected by whatever spell had been cast. I saw the panther trotting ahead of the others, leading the way through the narrow streets of Mirenburg. The whole city was frozen. We sped on through the gates, racing in moonlight towards the heights above the city. Only when we were looking down on the towers of Mirenburg did Oona pause and lift me from her back.

  Any barmy notion I might have had that Oona and the panther were the same had gone, of course. Yet I still had a sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind that they were more closely related than most would think credible.

  Below us I saw a ball of golden fire approach the still hovering ball of silver fire through slicing bursts of rain. They quivered together in the air, as if sizing each other up. They expanded, growing brighter and apparently denser at the same time, and did not touch until, in the blink of an eye, they had merged, become the same thing, a single iris the color of polluted copper.

  “Stay there!” cried Oona above the noise of the rain, and ran back down towards the city.

  “Don’t leave me!” My shout was impulsive. With a wave she was gone, racing back towards that baleful eye which began to grow larger as she got closer. She disappeared through the gates as I waited anxiously, watching little stars and sparks descending on the roofs, chimneys and steeples of the City in the Autumn Stars. Then the globe became a red, glowing coal and dropped earthward again.

  Was Herr Clement Schnooke working the magic he had promised? Or was something else going on, maybe started by von Minct and Klosterheim? I waited nervously. Suddenly I heard the rush of water from somewhere. I looked down through the starlight and saw the glint of the river, which was rising with terrible speed. I was so fascinated that I couldn’t move. Then the panther was there, pushing at me with her nose. It was wet and warm, just like an ordinary pet cat’s. She seemed to want me to follow her. Reluctantly I turned and climbed to higher ground. The water had already risen above its banks and spread out through the city streets. I began to hear distant shouts when the remains of the fiery ball fell back towards the Deep City and plunged down to where I guessed Raspazian’s to be. Now I was certain this was Herr Schnooke’s magic at work. I had a sinking feeling that the spell had gone seriously wrong, that Schnooke had been destroyed by his own magic. How many of my friends had he taken with him? I guessed that the spell had clashed with all the other magic at work that night. I know I witnessed a genuine disaster. All the inhabitants of Mirenburg were in serious danger.

  At last Oona stood beside me again as her Indians crept out of the darkness with Lord Renyard, Herr Lobkowitz and Lieutenant Fromental.

  “I have to go back there,” I said. “I made a promise.”

  “You can hope the majority survive,” said Oona very wearily. “We are only minutes away from being swallowed by the thing … Damned amateur magicians!”

  Which suggested it was definitely Schnooke.

  But I had to get back to help Onric. I babbled. I insisted. I struggled to make them let me go.

  Oona continued to speak softly and kindly to me, but her attention was elsewhere. In the end I had to hope the boy had saved himself from the flood. His coworkers, after all, had seemed to value and respect him.

  “We must stick together,” Oona insisted. The others agreed. She turned to her Kakatanawa to speak to them in their own language.

  I gave it one last try: “But there’s a boy back there. He’s like you, Lady Oona. Like Monsieur Zodiac!”

  She didn’t really hear me. “We can do little here. We must assume our friends are still in pursuit. This has much to do with them, I suppose.”

  I felt sick as I watched the city fill with water. I now clearly heard shouts, screams and the noises of panicking animals. Oona said something again to the Kakatanawa.

  I found it hard to turn my back on the flooding city. I still had friends down there. When I mentioned this to Prince Lobkowitz he put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. I looked up into his kindly, miserable eyes. “What we have to do is more important than the fate of those poor souls, my dear. We must get away from here as soon as possible. We have to consider the wider good.”

  “I would have thought Onric could have been included in the wider good,” I said.

  “What name?” She frowned at me through the rain. “What name?”

  “Onric. An albino. Looked a lot like you. He had a job in a factory down there. Well, he’ll probably be out of work now.” I was a bit fed up that nobody had listened to me.

  “A factory?”

  “A steel-making place. Where everything’s white-hot, you know, unless it’s red-hot.”

  She turned to look back at drowning Mirenburg. Some factory chimneys still smoked, but it was easy to see that their fires had been dampened, flooded and were choking. “Was he my age?” she asked in a strange voice.

  Lord Renyard came over to us before I could reply to her weird question. “The moon,” he murmured, and looked up.

  My heart began to beat all the harder, for through the rain a full moon glowed, bright, clear and blue. The rocky landscape ahead of us was bathed in a faint blue light.

  Behind us on the road below we saw people and animais plunging in panic out of the city gates nearest us, heading towards higher ground. We continued on the rocky paths well above them as my friends clearly tried to gain as much height as possible above the still rising waters.

  Oona cursed the incompetent magician Clement Schnooke from time to time. I felt that more than one kind of magic had met here tonight, without actually managing to do anyone any good.

  “We can’t be certain how far the river will rise,” said Oona. “For all we know, it won’t be much. But we have to get up into the mountains if we can. They are using quicksilver against us.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, and I was almost in tears again, imagining my new albino friend drowned in his factory after I had promised to help him.

  “Are we going back home?” I asked.

  “As soon as we can, dear,” murmured my grandmother.

  “You might say we have lost the path through.” Lord Renyard was looking longingly back at the flooded ci
ty. I felt so sorry for him. All his people had been left behind, everything he loved, including his prized library. At least my own home was still in one piece. Or so I supposed.

  The Autumn Stars were appearing over the city, forming almost a pattern around the still glowing blue moon. I tried to look up in the sky and see where they began and ended, but I couldn’t tell. I focused on a big rent in the black clouds, almost as if the light itself had created it.

  Wet, miserable and tired, we kept walking all that night and by dawn were well into the mountains. Only then did Oona sign that we could stop and shelter in the pine forest while she and the Kakatanawa went off to find food for us. Prince Lobkowitz and Lieutenant Fromental built a fire. Lord Renyard, having spent much of the night in low conversation with Oona, was definitely depressed. He went over to some mossy rocks and sat down. I joined him. He seemed pleased.

  “What’s going on, Lord Renyard?” I asked. “I’m sure your people must have been able to save themselves. They’re very resourceful. Not too many will have been hurt.”

  “Some, at least, are safe. Perhaps all of them. The worst flooding appears to have been in reverse. In the mirror city. In the world below. Our path was between the worlds.”

  He didn’t seem to have seen what I had seen, yet I believed him.

  “What happened?”

  “A clash of magics, almost certainly. Those men who seek you are ruthless. They’ll risk anyone’s life to capture you. But nobody expected them to try to flush you and Oona out with a water spell. That went wrong for them when their spell clashed with Clement Schnooke’s. You saw the result.”

  “What was Schnooke’s spell?”

  “His was a time spell, with elements of fire and water spells, intended to release us and divert our captors. But two kinds of magic being wrought at the same time— well, people will always suffer.” He sighed. “And it is always the innocent who suffer most. Had I been free, I might have prevented this.”