The White Wolf's Son: The Albino Underground Read online

  “Possibly more formal,” said Prince Lobkowitz. “New states set high store by such things, as do new statesmen.” He had already approved of my dress, which was very nice, given that I hadn’t even shopped for it. In the carriage I worked on the hairdo Oona had tried to give me on the run. I thought I looked pretty good, all in all. Not that I usually cared.

  The carriages moved up a wide avenue to what Oona called the Krasnya Palace, although the drivers called it something else. It was much fancier than the Mirenburg I’d left. The palace had a French rather than a classical style and reminded me of Versailles.

  We left the carriages and ascended the wide steps up to the front doors, which were guarded on both sides by women in very bulky armor, with flame lances held at the slant. Next we were greeted by an elaborately dressed majordomo with a magnificent black beard shot with grey, who asked us to follow him through the marble corridors, past freshly painted walls. The entire place had been elaborately redecorated from top to bottom. It smelled of paint throughout. The predominant color was now vivid green. Most vivid of all were the curtains, drawn back from the long windows, but the trim on the wood was a pretty violent green, too.

  Door after door opened, was entered, then closed behind us until we stood in a small throne room filled with people. Sitting on the white alabaster throne itself was the nice-looking gentleman who had entertained us to lunch the day before. He had the same straightforward, almost naive manner, and we got the impression again of an honest man of action. He had been elected to his position of protector, but apparently the right was his by blood. He rose from his throne and came down the steps to greet us, standing on the lowest step while the majordomo introduced us one by one. He had the most trouble with getting his tongue around the Kakatanawa names and in the end resorted to letting them introduce themselves, which they did with all the grace and style of born diplomats.

  “Good morning to you, honored visitors,” he said. “We are especially glad to greet gentlemen from far Amarahk, who do not disappoint us, for our legends say the Amarahki were great warriors and handsome people.” He spoke in a low, respectful tone.

  It was an odd understanding of America, but I rather liked it. I realized there had been a time, and possibly was still a time somewhere in the multiverse, when Native Americans governed their own country. He seemed to have the idea that we were all from America, and nobody told him otherwise. He might as well think we were from there as from anywhere. In this “brane” or “realm” of the multiverse America had not been colonized by Europeans except in certain isolated places.

  “Any friends of the great Lord Elric, of course, are friends of ours. You already know this, and I am again glad to welcome you here.” He had climbed a few stairs and now sat down again. “He alone is responsible for what was begun here.”

  “It is a shame he left no forwarding address,” said Lieutenant Fromental rather sardonically, without insulting the young protector.

  “I agree,” said Prince Yaroslaf. “But he had already done so much for us, I could ask him no more. It seemed clear to me that he did not wish to tell us where he went, save to find the ‘moonbeam roads’ he spoke about.”

  The conversation lost me after that, but the others seemed to be getting something out of it. In the end I gave up listening and decided to enjoy myself as best I could. About the only interesting bit was when we were shown a display of captured armor and weapons from Granbretan. It really was weird stuff, especially the mantis armor of King Huon’s guard, which looked as if a whole lot of giant insects had been wiped out. At some point refreshments were brought in, and I had the best glass of lemonade I’d ever tasted. Yet I still couldn’t help thinking of the white-skinned boy I’d seen. I really wanted to get back to the fairgrounds and find him. I wondered if, later on, I could persuade Lord Renyard to help me.

  Meanwhile I continued to find Prince Yaroslaf’s formal court rather funny. In their padded clothes they were like a hall full of Renaissance Michelin Men. I knew it was wrong to laugh, but it was hard to keep from giggling sometimes. These people were fighting for life and freedom against a terrible evil, and all I could do was laugh! I decided I must be shallow. And this made me even more amused. The guiltier I felt, the more I wanted to giggle. In the end I asked a footman where to find the bathroom. This turned out to be a sort of inverted pyramid in the floor. At least I didn’t really need it. Once inside, I almost exploded with laughter, giggling myself silly.

  The door had a kind of grille in it so that people inside could see if someone was waiting outside, without anyone being able to see in. After about ten minutes I was all right. I put my eye to the grille and watched the people coming and going along the passage. No one needed the toilet, so I relaxed and collected myself. The next time I looked through the grille, however, I got a shock.

  Passing the door, as bold as brass, was Herr Klosterheim! So the man in the cowl had been Gaynor! I was totally astonished and almost fell backwards. When I peered out through the grille again he had, of course, gone.

  For a while I was too terrified to leave. Yet I knew I had to warn my friends. Was Klosterheim in league with Prince Yaroslaf? I had no way of knowing. And now I felt sick with anxiety.

  Eventually I pulled myself together, left the bathroom, and hurried to look for one of my companions.

  Fortunately Oona found me before I found her. She, too, seemed scared, and I had another reason to feel guilty.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. “But I’ve got something important to tell you. If I hadn’t gone to the bathroom, I’d never have found it out.” I was panting. “I saw Herr Klosterheim and had to wait until he was gone. Then—”

  “We thought you’d been kidnapped,” she said. Then she paused. “What? You’ve seen Klosterheim? Where?”

  “In the hall. Passing the bathroom,” I told her. “In that corridor. Back there. He didn’t know I saw him. Did you know he had followed us?”

  “The prince thinks they left with Elric following them. What can this mean? My guess is that they’re working for the Empire and don’t even know we’re here. Yet Prince Yaroslaf knows them both. He knows they are probably his enemies. Why hasn’t he had them arrested?”

  “Perhaps he’s playing a more complex game than we think,” I said, feeling a total idiot.

  She nodded absently. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

  Since the reception was in our honor, it was some time before we were able to leave. Our carriages hurried through the late-morning streets of Mirenburg. I was hungry, as I hadn’t even had much chance to look at the buffet. That lemonade had improved my expectations of Wäldensteiner food.

  Back at the inn my friends conferred. One of us must find out if von Minct was here and if he and Klosterheim had the confidence of the protector, who had declared that Elric was his enemy. We feared, of course, a repetition of the events in that other Mirenburg.

  “And repetition,” said Prince Lobkowitz, “is very much a norm in the multiverse. It’s a sign of order, as in music. Our lives, personalities and stories all tend to repeat themselves, as do the composition and arrangements of the stars and planets.”

  “Surely such repetition is the natural state of Law,” suggested Lord Renyard.

  “And the antithesis of Chaos?” said Lieutenant Fromental.

  “So does Klosterheim serve Law or Chaos now?” I asked.

  “In truth, he makes the alliances which suit him, but he and von Minct tend towards a corrupted form of Law,” answered Oona.

  I still couldn’t see why those two would have anything to do with me. As far as I knew, I had no understanding, affiliation or interest in Law, Chaos or anything else supernatural. All I wanted was to get home and be able to tell my mum and dad about my adventures. I was pretty sure that was all Oona wanted for me, too.

  “We need to get in touch with the man who essentially got this whole war going,” said Prince Lobkowitz. “Hawkmoon and his people recently retook Kamarg, as yo
u have heard. We should contact him. He is a manifestation of the Champion Eternal, a seasoned Knight of the Balance, who understands the nature of the multiverse rather better than most. Hawkmoon is bound to know a scientist who can help us.”

  “Are they still in Kamarg?”

  “I assume so. But his army moves with supernatural speed.”

  “How far is it?” asked Oona.

  “We should have to cross a fair bit of Europe,” said Prince Lobkowitz. “Parts of which are still at war, as we have seen. Our journey would take us across the Switzer mountains, which are full of bandits, or via Italia and Frankonia. A dangerous path, for which we should need a guide, I think.” Prince Lobkowitz was shaking his head. “Even if we were loaned enough ornithopters to fly us there—and we know they have none to spare—it would be a long journey.”

  “Is there no other alternative?” asked Lord Renyard. I had the feeling he didn’t want to leave Mirenburg, however different it was from his own city.

  “There is only one solution which makes sense,” said Lieutenant Fromental after a while. “Some of us must go to Kamarg by land, and the rest must take the young lady there by air.”

  I didn’t want us to separate, but I did fancy the idea of having a ride in one of those weird planes, so before anyone else could say anything I cried: “I like the idea!”

  “I’m not sure …,” began Oona.

  “It would get me to safety quicker, wouldn’t it?” I said. “And Mr. Klosterheim and Mr. von Minct would be less able to follow.”

  “You speak sense, I think, little mademoiselle.” Lord Renyard put his two red-furred paws on the table to emphasize his assent.

  “But what if you did not see Klosterheim?” said Oona. “What if you only saw someone who resembled him?”

  “Then who was that monk at lunch yesterday? I’m pretty sure it was Gaynor.”

  “I saw him, too,” she admitted. “But I didn’t assume it was Gaynor. Hmmm…” She sighed. “We must wait,” she said, almost to herself. “We must wait.”

  “Oh, please!” I lost my cool altogether. “Why?”

  “No spare flying machines, for a start,” she said. “Our best hope would be to get you and someone else onto an ornithopter already bound for Kamarg.”

  “We haven’t time to see how the war goes,” said Prince Lobkowitz. “I’ve talked to people here. They say there are still battlecraft in the area. The Dark Empire makes raids. They’ve been driven out, but they’re not defeated. There’s every possibility of a flying machine being attacked. It would be too risky.”

  “But my mum and dad will be worrying,” I said. “I don’t want to miss a chance of getting home.”

  “I understand.” She looked so worried, I felt sorry for her. “Traveling to Kamarg, however, won’t necessarily get you all reunited sooner. It would just be a chance that Duke Dorian or one of his people could help. If, for instance, they have the crystal which gives them access to other dimensions, they could offer us real protection. While I can travel the moonbeam roads, I need to find a route through before I can try to find Elric or a way to your home that’s reasonably safe. If Mirenburg hadn’t been flooded by that fool’s spell …”

  “I know you will do whatever you can,” I told her. “But if there’s any way of getting home …” I was repeating myself and stopped.

  “Hawkmoon has his own concerns,” she said. “He won’t sacrifice them for our interests. Only if those interests coincide with his duty. Like us, he has enemies all around him. We have to stick together. Watch one another’s backs. That’s how we’ll survive until we get that chance you want.” Suddenly, affectionately, she had reached out to me. I realized how carefully she was guarding her emotions. I knew then how much she loved me. I knew she had to be my mother’s mother, no matter how impossible it seemed. I so badly wanted to ask her how she had kept so young, but I knew it wasn’t the time.

  My emotions began to roller-coaster again. I forced myself to calm down. I felt suddenly better. Now all I could do was enter the safety of my grandmother’s embrace.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NEXT DAY I sat in my room trying to make conversation with Lieutenant Fromental, who had obviously been left on guard in case Klosterheim came looking for me. By now none of us was completely sure I had actually seen him.

  Fromental was a kind, gentle giant who took his job seriously, but he wasn’t very good company. He knew a lot about French comics and American thrillers, especially the Jack Hammer mysteries, but we had almost nothing in common. We didn’t even like the same movies. He had been in the French Foreign Legion and had wandered into Mu-Ooria years ago while exploring in Morocco. There he’d met Prince Lobkowitz, but he didn’t like to talk of their adventures fighting what they called “the Lost Nazis.” I needed something to take my mind off everything, like a trip to the pictures. How did these people relax? I wasn’t as much worried about Klosterheim as they were. I was thinking of those pleasure gardens, wishing they had TV in this weird world and consoling myself that it would probably be totally weird TV anyway. There wasn’t even a book I could read. Some of them seemed to be written in English, but the spelling was all different, and I didn’t understand a lot of the words. I tried translating, with Lieutenant Fromental’s help, but he was puzzled, too. He thought some of the language was more like French than English. Even the books with pictures didn’t make much sense, so I asked Lieutenant Fromental if he felt like going to the fair. He was very serious when he apologized, spreading his huge hands.

  “Little mademoiselle, we have to be sure no harm befalls you. If Klosterheim is in the city, you are in considerable danger. Considerable danger. I cannot impress on you enough how much danger …”

  “I understand,” I said. “It’s dangerous. I know.” The problem was that the dreams were beginning to fade again. I knew I couldn’t put myself in peril and frighten my friends, and I wasn’t about to let boredom get to me, but I was also thinking of the person I’d seen in the tent who so resembled both the missing Monsieur Zodiac and the blind boy, Onric.

  Another day dragged slowly by. And another. I waited eagerly for news of the war, hoping someone would tell us it was over. Everyone else went out whenever they wished. Once a week the whole Kakatanawa troop stayed with me. They had a game with beads and a large hollowed-out piece of wood which one of them told me was called the “canoe,” and I became obsessed with playing it for a while.

  My friends had begun to think I had made a mistake about seeing Klosterheim in the palace. Prince Yaroslaf had clearly not invited him to court. The prince remained adamant that he considered Klosterheim and von Minct enemies, who would serve themselves at every turn and serve the Dark Empire if it suited them. They had been seen elsewhere, however. One report placed them in Kamarg itself, fleeing shortly before Hawkmoon’s army retook the province. Another put them on the northern coast.

  I think I eventually wore Oona down. She finally came to the conclusion that Klosterheim and von Minct had moved on, if indeed they had been here at all. I didn’t get my ornithopter ride, but she did allow me to go to the fairgrounds as long as all the Kakatanawa and Lord Renyard went with me. It was better than sitting inside.

  Thus, in the company of twelve Americans and a gigantic fox, I found the tent where I had seen the boy, only this time I went in the front entrance. Bright yellow and black displays announced something translated into English, I assumed, as a “Cornucopia of Thespian Skills.” Lord Renyard paid for all our entrance tickets. None of us could read the rest of the sign, which was in a language about as far removed from the English I understood as Chaucer’s, but we were all pretty sure it was English. It reminded me that I was still puzzled about how people, admittedly with some very strange accents, seemed to know a more or less common language. Lord Renyard said it was the lingua franca of the multiverse, which, through a series of very peculiar circumstances, was spoken by people who could walk between the worlds.

  Under the canvas, a medium-size
pit had been dug into the ground. It was surrounded by long benches, and an old man was standing in the pit, telling a story whose point I missed entirely.

  I waited patiently, hoping that the albino boy would be next to perform, but the old man was replaced by actors wearing animal masks and doing something called Adalf and Eeva, which made no sense at all. Lord Renyard, who seemed pretty bored, said they reminded him of Greek players. The scene went on for hours, it seemed to me, and in the end we had to leave. I didn’t see the boy anywhere. By the time Oona turned up to take us home I was actually looking forward to getting back to the Nun and Turtle.

  Oona laughed at my expression and comforted me by saying how she and Prince Lobkowitz had been trying all day to find a way underground. She was now pretty certain this version of the city didn’t have a mirror image, and she had decided that it was time for us to move on. In München, Barkelon or Parye, she said, we might have better luck. But not here.

  Everyone seemed a bit down. All of us there preferred action of almost any kind to no action at all. As we left the tent we found ourselves surrounded again by revelers in fanciful costumes dancing in a long line, their hands on the waist of the person ahead of them. People were laughing and singing, and some staggered a bit. We stuck together but couldn’t avoid getting caught up in the cheerful crowd enjoying the ritual dance.

  And then, as we danced by a gap in the tents, I at last spotted the albino boy again: a young man with glittering red eyes staring straight out of hell and straight into mine. I tried to wrench myself free of the crowd and wave to him. I had a clear view of his face this time, and though they were clearly related, it was not Monsieur Zodiac. It was Onric!

  I wriggled out of the mob and ran back to the tent to find him. All of my friends were shouting and following, but the youth had disappeared. I stopped running to let everyone catch up with me. But before they could do so, a figure wearing a papier-mâché Red Riding Hood wolf mask darted from the crowd and grabbed me. I don’t think the black-clad man had any idea how strong I was as I kicked and bit him, clawing for his eyes and dislodging the mask to reveal the cadaverous face of Herr Klosterheim.