Chapter 14
I
The bedroom that the fallen angel had offered to me to spend the night was pink, just like the rest of his strange palace. The walls, the fabric covering the chairs, the carpet, the curtains, the tapestries on the walls, the drapes and the sheets of my four-poster bed, everything was pink. It was such a vibrant, unnatural color that it hurt my eyes just to look at it. I sat down next the window overlooking the garden, grimacing as I tried to lift my injured leg onto a pink padded stool. Everything in this room was also so absurdly comfortable. My back was half disappearing into the chair, as if the thing was trying to swallow me whole. Is this what heaven was like? Everything covered in fluffy, cloudlike cushions so you didn't have to be reminded that you actually had a backside?
More confused than reassured by my bizarre surroundings, I rolled up the fabric of my trousers. Underneath the dried up brown mess, the wound was still weeping blood. The curtains, despite its horrible color, looked cleaner than my own clothes had been for a very long while. So I reached for them and ripped a long strip from the cloth to use it as a bandage. I was already wrapping it around my wound when someone knocked on the door.
"Richard?" It was Ophelia. Her hesitant announcement was followed by a second brief knock. "May I come in?"
"Go away." I shouted through the door. I really did not wish to see her, fearing for what it would do to my resolve.
"I know you're still angry with me. Please, let me explain. Please open the door. We must talk."
I shook my head and pressed my hands against my ears. I did not want to listen to her. I never wanted to be fooled by her again.
"Your father did all the explaining already. There is really nothing left to say."
There came a long pause from the other side before she continued.
"I love you." Her voice was trembling slightly, and sounded frail like injured bird. "You may also not believe this, but it is the truth. I do love you."
I couldn't help it. Her confession stabbed daggers into my heart. Before I could control myself, I was rushing over to the door like the stupid fool I was and pulled it wide open to confront her.
"You lied to me about everything! How can I ever trust you again?"
How, I really wanted to ask, could I ever trust anybody in this world again, if I had even lost my faith in her?
"You told me your father had died. You said that you have lived in that cabin all by yourself since you were a little girl. You lied to me. You lied and you lied, from the very first day that we have met! Was anything that you told me actually real?! Tell me, did you really save all those people in the monastery, or was that also just a conjured up magical trick to impress me?"
"Of course those people were real." She replied, her face pale, alarmed by my anger. "You helped to save them. If wasn't for you ringing that bell, they wouldn't have fled in time."
Her face was one of deep sorrow, her forehead showed deep lines of regret, but there was this hint of defiance that still burnt brightly when she stared back at me with her piercing green eyes. "And yes! I have lied to you. I did it because I needed to prepare you for what was to come and I wanted to keep you safe. I swear I have never done anything to hurt you!"
"Your father ordered you to keep me safe! You just did what he commanded you to do."
"Maybe, in the beginning…"She clutched her forehead and looked away. "I used to help you because I wanted to comply to my father's wishes, but as I came to know you…"
"How can you even claim that?!" I swirled around in anger, my lips spreading into a sarcastic, joyless grin. "You really have no idea who I am!" I thought of the all the horrible secrets that I had kept from her. All the evil I had done and had I kept buried deep inside my soul. "Have you even seem me at my worst?" I asked, my eyes burning with self-loathing.
Then it struck me.
"Your father said something, just before we crossed over through the portal. He said that you will guide and protect me, just like you have done my entire life. Is that true?" It was an upsetting thought that soon turned into an equally upsetting realization. "It is true, isn't? That woman, who I have met in my youth, that one cold winter night when I ran away from the Christmas celebrations, that was you."
"Yes! Yes that was me." She admitted, pushing out the words in one deep ragged breath as she entered the room. "I was also your tutor's assistant who watched you fight back after being tormented by your bully cousins for so long. I was the nameless servant girl in your household, when you began scheming for your brother's throne. And I have also been a lady in waiting for your queen, when she was murdered on your command. I was even out there with you on the cold Bosworth battlefield when you breathed out your final breath."
"So you really have been there, my whole entire life." I muttered, baffled by this revelation. "You knew how I was." There was no use in trying to hide anything from her anymore. She knew all about my crimes. She had watched me grow up from a deeply uphappy child to a cruel vindictive youth that had lost every trace of human kindness, and had seen the vicious tyrant I had finally become. She had stared this loathsome monster in the eyes, and knew every ugly blood stained detail of my rotten soul.
She should have fled. She should have given up on me, or at least condemned me like all the others for what I was and what I had done, but instead…
I swallowed hard, and cast my gaze up at the ceiling, blinking away the moistness that stung my eyes. "If you know who I truly am, how can you still claim to love me?"
"Because I had all this time to really know you." She blurted out, shaking her head. "Oh Richard, you're such a stubborn man! You may still believe that you are a monster who has no right to the love or kindness of another living soul, but I know your heart, perhaps even better than you do yourself. You do deserve forgiveness, and you do deserve my love."
"You mean, the mercy of the daughter of a fallen angel?" I replied cynically, but deep down, I truly wished with my whole heart that everything she told me was really true.
"Do you remember that night when we were celebrating Mayday in the monastery?" She asked, coming closer and wrapping her arms over my shoulders. "I told you that we both are what our fathers made us, but we don't need to be. I assure you, I love you not because of what I am, because of how my father had created me, but because life has changed me." She took my withered hand and held it close to her heart. "Knowing you has changed me."
She looked deep into my eyes and my resolve fell to pieces. How could I ever turn her away? She was the only person in my life that meant anything to me. Without her, I would be just lost in a world of people with whom I felt no connection, and for whom I knew no kindness, and no mercy. Losing her was like losing my final grip on humanity.
"I have never done anything good in my whole life." I told her, finally admitting to my deepest, darkest fears. "I was a villain. I lied and I betrayed and I have killed so many people. Even those who were close to me. How can I ever be brave or good? How can I ever be anything like you?"
She smiled a soft troubled smile. "You once thought that you could not feel remorse, but you showed me that you can. You have never considered putting yourself in danger to save another life, but you did. You never believed you would love another soul, and still you do." Gently, her fingers caressed my cheek. "So if all that can change, why cannot the rest of your heart?"
II
"I trust that your overnight stay here was comfortable. Nothing is more important than a good night rest to prepare oneself for the challenges of the day." Raziel said in a pleasant way while he guided us through the garden. It was still early in the morning. The sun hung low on the horizon and the heat of yesterday was still a distant memory.
"Your leg certainly sounds much better." He commented, pointing the curved end of his staff at the neat white linen bandages wrapped around my injured leg. Ophelia had used them to redress my wound after she had convinced me that unsterilized pieces of curtains were not exactly suitable.
"You know the condition of my injury just by listening?" I asked not without disbelief.
"Oh you can learn a lot about a man from the sound of his footfall. Your steps are far less hesitant and much steadier than yesterday. I can also learn much about human emotions by just listening to your voices. For example, I could learn, from the way Ophelia has greeted me this morning that a great grief has lifted from her heart. The pitch of her voice sounded much more content, almost joyful even."
"We are very much obliged to you for you hospitality." Ophelia hastily interrupted him.
"No doubt your journey to get here was difficult." Raziel replied with a knowing smile. "But that is how it should be. This paradise was created with only one sole purpose."
"And what would that enigmatic purpose happen to be?" I asked.
"To protect my charges from falling into the hands of the wrong angels."
He led us through a narrow opening in a row of hedges. On the other side was an endlessly long rectangular pond with on one end a large artificial waterfall. A crystal clear stream was cascading down from a gently slope. Neat lines of limestone gargoyle were spewing out jets of water on both sides. The other end of the pond completely disappeared over the horizon.
"This place is like a surreal dream." I commented, noticing that the size of the pond in proportion of the garden was all wrong and quite impossible.
"This garden is not anywhere in your world." Raziel explained. "It is sealed outside of your universe, even out of time itself. The hosts have created this place to hide the 3 relics that are required to defeat the Fallen One."
"The key, the chains of Orestes, and the Avernus." Ophelia remembered. "Father has already told us about these."
"You said that this place had been waiting for me." I noted.
"Only the Morningstar was destined to come here and to retrieve the relics. And since the Morningstar has become Richard Plantagenet, we have indeed been expecting the last of the York kings." Raziel gazed around the garden as if in thought. "I have been the guardian of this place for a very long time. Although I wish for nothing more but for you to succeed, you must realize Plantagenet, that I cannot help you. The trails must be successfully completed on your own strengths and virtues. Clemens was the one who was tasked by the hosts to prepare you for all this. I hope, for your own sake, that he has performed his duty well."
I glanced over my shoulder at Ophelia, and my heart filled with hope. "Yes." I replied. "He did."
"Well then, let the first trail begin."
Raziel picked up a stone and held it above the dark surface of the pond. "The first thing you must learn is that the rules of nature do not apply here. You can see right through the water to the bottom of this pond, so it appears to be very shallow. But look what happens when I do this."
He dropped in the pebble. For a remarkable long time, it continued to sink down to the bottom.
"It is taking much longer than you have anticipated because it is far deeper than it looks." Raziel explained when finally the peddle reached the bottom and started to settle down. As soon as it touched the other stones, turbulent waves swept over the murky bedding and revealed a graveyard of glistening metal underneath.
Ophelia came closer and peered through the water surface to examine it. "The whole floor is covered with keys." She remarked.
"Yes. There all sorts of keys down there. Keys made out of silver, copper, and metal. Rusty keys, in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Keys that fit locks that would open doors to long lost palaces with unfathomable riches. Keys that give access to secret chambers where no living soul has ever stepped inside since the very beginning of time. Even keys that open portals into other times and dimensions. So many keys, but only one that will free the fallen angel of mercy."
"How do we know which key to chose?" I asked.
"Well, that would be your task to find out." Raziel said, and with a short sudden push with his staff, he launched Ophelia into the pond. The moment she disappeared beneath the surface, the water above her started to harden into ice and began to seal her in. I rushed over to the side and smashed my fists into the growing ice sheets. To my great distress, it didn't even made a tiny dent.
"Oh please don't waste precious time on trying to save her by breaking the ice." Raziel warned me. "It won't open up till you have found the right key."
I watched with utter horror how Ophelia struggled underneath the ice. A precious string of air parted from her lips as she pushed against the frozen transparent surface.
"But she doesn't know which one to pick!"
"You could just tell her." He replied with stone-cold calm. "It's your trail. She can still hear you."
"But how do I know which one it is! There must be thousands of them. Stop this I beg you!" I fell down on my knees. "Please stop this! You're going to kill her!"
"You are going to kill her, Plantagenet, not me, by failing her. Still, it's not to late. I saw her take in a good deep breath before she went under. You have minutes."
I uttered a cry of frustration and scrambled to the side of the pond where I tried frantically to scan over the bottom, but the cloudy crystals in the ice layer obstructed my view. I could see no deeper than a few meters below the surface. My heart sank. Finding the right key was an absolute impossible task. I didn't even know what the blasted thing was supposed to look like. But then I remembered, the angel of mercy had pointed out his path to freedom to me, the alcove with the gilded cage. Was there a lock on that cage? If I could just remember the lock, and with that the precise shape of the keyhole, maybe that would help…but there was no lock, was there? I went through the memory of that exact moment again and again and I was almost certain…but if there wasn't a lock, what was Clemens pointing at? What could be the lock of the key to his freedom? He wasn't pointing at the cage…It just looked like he did, because I wasn't really paying attention, no, he was pointing at that monstrous crow.
"I have been imprisoned on this one rock island for decades. I cannot leave this place, not without your help, and not without a blood sacrifice."
The answer struck me like a lightening bolt and I shouted from the bottom of my lungs through the thick layer ice, hoping desperately that Ophelia was still able to hear me.
"It's not shaped like key! It's more like an arrow or a knife, something sharp that will draw blood! Please Ophelia! Try to find it!"
Thankfully, she appeared to have heard me and swirled around to dive towards the bottom in search for the relic. My heart rattled like mad when I watched her disappear into the deep. It then soon began to slide into a deep dark pit of despair as seconds ticked by into minutes without any signs of her return. I was nervous and frightened, oh so very frightened, and began to beg and bargain with god or whoever was up there to please let her live, please let her come back. I only dared to draw another breath again when I finally saw her pale moon face shimmer underneath the ice, her black hair a swirling cloud around her large, anxious eyes. She held in her hand an object, cold, glistening, and sharp. With the last of her strength she stabbed it into the bottom of the ice sheet. A web of cracks spread quickly from the impact point and shattered the surface into a million glistening crystals. I reached out and grabbed her hand. It was ice cold to the touch. I dragged her out of the pond and onto dry land, cradling her face while calling out her name repeatedly. When her eyes at long last fluttered open, I breathed out a deep sigh of relief.
"Did we retrieve it?" She wheezed, coughing up water. "Did I get the right one?"
"Congratulations." Raziel remarked, clapping his hands. "You have found the right key. If you have not, you would have simply drowned."
"Simply?" Anger rushed through my veins and I stared up at the blind angel with a hate-fuelled look. "Simply?! Do you fallen angels have solid stone cold rocks instead of hearts?! You almost killed her!"
"It would have been most unfortunate." The blind angel mused, oh so very rationally and devoid of any empathy. "But Ophelia is the daughter of Clemens. She of all people knows that we all must play or part in our maker's design."
"If these ridiculous trials are really in our maker's plan, then they are flawed! It is completely pointless and sadistic!" I sneered back at him.
"Richard, please." Ophelia interrupted, trying to calm me down. "Listen to me. We have to go through this. There is no other way."
"This is the only way to defeat Lucifer." Raziel replied firmly. "We all have our own duties, Plantagenet. Even you. Now try to be happy what you have achieved here. If god is willing, you will soon retrieve the other relics."
I stared at the key in Ophelia's hand, the rusted metal shaped like an arrow that was not worth even a second of her life, and cursed my decision for having ever accepted Clemens' offer.
TBC
