Hugo von Tarlenheim drove Martin’s Wendel saloon up the Taveln valley with an unusual passenger. The shade of Lucacz Marcovic sat in the front beside him, delighted.
‘This is amazing … so fast and smooth. Tell me again how it works.’ Lucacz had rolled down the side window and was holding his arm out twisting it in the wind of passage.
‘Careful, Dead Boy,’ Hugo grinned. ‘Your arm will blow away, and what would you do then?’
‘Really! No. I can tell you’re fibbing. Why would you deliberately attempt to mislead a poor innocent spirit like me? Bad man.’ He laughed and kissed Hugo’s cheek. Lucacz was a joy when he accompanied Hugo on his travels, always full of humour, curiosity and enthusiasm for the modern world.
Hugo looked around. ‘We’re getting close to Terlenehem, the scenery must be getting familiar.’
‘When we’re there I’ll take you to see my grave. It’s in the town churchyard.’
‘Is there a headstone?’
‘What? For a stable lad like I was? Don’t be silly. But I thought you might want to lay some flowers. That’d be nice and romantic.’ Lucacz grinned cheekily. ‘Y’know Posh Boy, you’re not very romantic. It’s all about sex with you.’
Hugo squinted ahead. ‘Road block,’ he warned. ‘Damn it. It would be today, when we’re carrying the next issue of Vor Svobodjen to the print shop in Medeln.’
Lucacz smiled. ‘Why are these soldiers stopping … auto-mo-biles,’ he drew out the word with some satisfaction.
‘Hmm. The war has been going on for three years now. Petrol supplies are stretched in the Reich and difficult to get hold of, even more so for civilians in the occupied territories. The occupation forces have been told to make sure that civilian vehicles have approval to be on the road, and to make it risky for those without permission to try it.’
‘So that’s why the resistance gets you to deliver their post? Who’ll dare question the right of His Excellency Hugo Sergius Maria, Count in Tarlenheim, to be on the road between Strelsau — sorry, Strelzen — and Tarlenheim, or Terlenehem. Why did you people go around changing the familiar names of places I knew?’
‘Huh? Blame Queen Flavia and the Rothenian Renaissance. Look, Lucacz my love, take the packet from the back seat and … er … hide it.’
Lucacz sniggered. ‘What, shove it up my ass?’
‘Hurry up. We’re in the queue. How do I explain a naked and undead seventeen-year-old in my car?’
‘I’m gonna tough this one out, Hugo. I’m stuck in your world so I’d better try to blend in more. I’ll stay visible, and give clothes a chance. Take a look. I’ve been practising.’
Hugo looked over at the boy. He had adopted the dress of what Hugo imagined was a stable lad of the early eighteenth century: a leather jerkin over a coarse linen shirt, breeches with knee boots and a three-cornered hat. ‘Not bad, though a bit bucolic. Just lose the hat. Try for a cloth cap with a peak. Like the one Gottleib wears. I know you go perving on him when I’m not around.’
‘He’s a classy-looking lad. I could watch him wanking for hours.’
‘He’s entitled to his privacy. Don’t do it. He’s beginning to notice. He was telling me he sensed something odd around the house. Things moving around his room unaccountably and strange bumps in the night. I didn’t think he was referring to the vigorous work-outs you give my ass.’
‘I would certainly like to make closer acquaintance with his ass. So small and smooth. Yet it swallows Waclaw’s big cock with ease.’
‘I knew it. Stop the voyeurism. How can a dead boy be quite so obsessed with the sex act between men?’
Lucacz grunted a barely articulate reply that committed him to nothing. But he did assume a cloth cap as requested. A soldier tapped on Hugo’s side window, which he rolled down.
‘Papers. You and your friend. Don’t keep me waiting, kid.’ Hugo obliged. ‘So … the Graf von Tarlenheim. A good German name. You’re going to the château?’
‘I am, soldier.’
‘Everything seems in order. What about your lad? Is he your servant? Where’re your papers, sonny?’
‘Up my ass, shithead,’ Lucacz responded. ‘Now fuck off. And you call my boyfriend “sir” or preferably “your excellency”.’
The somewhat dazed soldier waved the car on without a word as to Lucacz’s abuse, though when he did he seemed to Hugo to be more than a little out of things. ‘We’re boyfriends then?’ he observed to Lucacz.
‘I think so. You’re such a lucky boy, your excellency.’
Hugo gave Lucacz a sidelong gance. ‘What did you do to that man?’
‘Just a bit of … what does Karl call it? Thaumaturgy.’
‘A long word for a simple stable hand who I don’t think ever saw the inside of a schoolroom.’
‘Hmph. This from a student who rarely sees the inside of a lecture room. Why is that by the way?’
‘Are you channelling my mother, Dead Boy? Simple answer. I never wanted to go on with my education beyond high school, but it was a way of doing nothing while seeming to being doing something. Then along comes this war and it appears I’m going to be dead anyway in a year or two. Takes the point out of graduation doesn’t it?’
‘I was afraid that was the reason. We’re going to have to have a talk one of these days, Hugo. Anyway, thaumaturgy. Karl tells me it’s a rather sophisticated branch of magic that is practised by the dead, or with their help. I had to go on a … what would you call it … a course, when the Council of Seers fingered me for this job.’
‘So being my boyfriend is just a job to you?’
‘Don’t be a dick, Posh Boy. What do you want it to have been? A competitive examination where dozens of candidates auditioned for the privilege of taking your beautiful ass? It was ordained to be me, and that was that. Falling in love with you was not part of the plan. Just count yourself lucky’
A somewhat tense silence followed between the pair which was ended by their entrance into the town of Terlenehem. ‘My God, where’s the smithy?’ Lucacz asked, amongst many other questions. ‘And what’s that building? A Bahnhof? What’s a Bahnhof … oh, I remember, it’s where train engines stop on the railway. Why didn’t we come on the train? Yeah, yeah right. ‘Cos we’re heading on to Medeln. Oh my God! The old town square’s the same at least. The Rose Inn don’t look any different apart from a new roof. And the church. We’d better have time to see where they put me.’
So the pair strolled the churchyard and Lucacz said he believed a patch of tussocky thick grass near the west end of the church was approximately where his corpse had been buried. He stole a bunch of flowers from a nearby more modern grave and got Hugo to ceremoniously lay them on the spot, chiding him for not weeping. ‘You are just not sentimental, Posh Boy. Think of my young life cut short and unfulfilled, then me laid in this pauper’s grave unmourned by any cute boy and all. Sad.’
Hugo gave Lucacz a sharp look. ‘Sounds familiar, asshole. That’s what’s gonna happen to me too.’ He sighed. ‘Well at least I can get a preview of my resting place. Over on the north side is the family mausoleum, where a neat little slot awaits my coffin.’
‘Ah … wouldn’t be too confident that you’ll end up there.’
‘What? What d’you know about my death you’re not telling me about?’
‘Not for you to know, Hugo. Not yet.’
‘But you do know something.’
‘Let’s get to the abbey. I do so want to meet the abbess, her and your sister, the two Levites of the Icon.’
***
‘Well, Hugo. You look … different.’
‘Different, Euphemia? How’s that.’
‘A little older of course, but there’s something else. Boyfriend?’
Hugo gave a lop-sided grin at his sister, the only one of his siblings to work out his sexuality. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘Something like that.’
‘What’s his name? Do we know him?’
‘Ah … now that’s the problem. He’s not our sort, quite the opposite. The servant class.’
‘Oh Hugo. Your usual lack of judgement.’
‘And there’s more, Euphemia.’
‘What?’
‘You’ll have to wait till you meet him, you and the abbess.’
‘Curious. He’s here?’
‘I brought him with me in the Wendel Martin Tofts bought, the one in which he taught me to drive. Talking of which, here’s the next issue of Vor Svobodjen for you to proof and set.’ Hugo offered the thick packet to his sister. Prioress Euphemia had enthusiastically taken on the running of the Medeln print shop, to do which she had learnt type-setting. She also liked to proof read the issues, saying that if her presses brought the truth to Rothenia, it was right and proper that it be in good and grammatical Rothenian and German.
‘Very well Hugo, I’ll take this over to the shop. Where’s your boyfriend?’
‘He wanted to go into the church.’
‘When you find the lad, tell him that he’s to join the abbess and us for tea. What’s his name?’
‘Lucacz. He used to live in Terlenehem when he was younger.’
Hugo found Lucacz in the choir aisle, staring up at the funeral monument of Princess Osra. ‘Weird,’ he commented.
‘This from a dead boy,’ Hugo scoffed. ‘I would have thought your criteria for weird must be very different from the living.’
‘I find the living weird. I’ve died so I know there’s nothing terrifying about death, yet look how you people voluntarily frighten yourself out of your minds about it with exhibitions of gaunt skeletons and grinning skulls. Now that’s truly weird.’
Hugo had learned enough about Lucacz to know when not to challenge him. The dead boy was uncomfortably bright, and Hugo had begun to realise Lucacz was more than a match for him intellectually. So he settled for questioning him. ‘Why are you hanging out here, in this abbey, boyfriend?’
Lucacz took Hugo’s arm. ‘I made my first communion here. All the town kids came here from Tarlenheim that day, in a procession behind banners and candles. I got to wear shoes for the first time. Hurt like fuck. I’d never seen a building so big as this. There was a bishop celebrating too. You didn’t often get to see them in my day. It’s really nice to see so little has changed at Medeln over the centuries. But this is new, and seriously weird.’ He pointed up at a wall monument.
Hugo peered up to see a sculpted wall tablet in deep relief. It portrayed a mysterious scene, wooded islands rearing out of a great lake, one topped with a tower, and between the islands flew winged horses. ‘What’s that supposed to be Lucacz?’
‘Only someone who has died could ever have seen that place. It’s the Isles of the Blessed in the World Beyond. You sent the Brentheim Boys there. That’s where the Council interviewed me for the post of your boyfriend and minder.’
‘Right. Agreed. Now that is indeed weird,’ Hugo agreed. ‘How do you explain it?’
‘It’s on a memorial to no less than Karl Wollherz.’
‘Ah, then that might explain it. He’s buried down below. It seems he agreed with you that tombs shouldn’t frighten the living. It’s a peaceful scene meant to soothe … and puzzle.’
A third voice spoke from behind them. ‘Nicely put, young Hugo.’ They turned to find Karl Wollherz himself smiling at them. ‘How are you both?’ he asked.
Hugo muscled in with a question uppermost on his mind. ‘Lucacz has been great, Herr Wollherz, but he hasn’t all the answers, and his grasp of thaumaturgy isn’t perfect as yet. He wants to know more about making more realistic bodies in this world.’
Karl grinned. ‘I can imagine why. Happy to help, boys. It is a specialised magic and not one developed by the Dead, but by some of our friends in the angelic orders. They are creatures of light, colour and music and have no substance, but some among them have to walk the ways of this world, and one of them in particular has perfected over the aeons the crafting of a warm and responsive body that will suit Lucacz much better for what he loves doing with you. His name is Jonas. He was happy to teach me and I can teach Lucacz as I also taught Count Oskar Maxim. I would have done it before, but you must realise by now our mission for Hugo was a rushed business. We’d better have a lesson now, as Lucacz has to meet the Levites, and those women need shaking up in ways only he can.’
***
Hugo stared wide-eyed around him, at the sapphire sky and at the bright golden sun which it was somehow no great discomfort to stare at. ‘So … er … this is Eden. And yet I’m not dead.’
Karl Wollherz laughed. ‘You don’t have to be dead to be brought here, though it helps. The barriers are thin in that abbey and I have long had the ability to cross them at will. In that particular place I do believe Lucacz could do it too if he wished.’
‘Really?’ said the boy in question with some interest. ‘Is that so?’
‘Yes my boy. Your thaumaturgical capacities are unusual amongst the Dead. It just needs a bit more training and you’ll be as powerful a revenant as there ever was. Now. Time flows strangely here. So you two need not worry about being late for your meeting with the Levites. Hugo, you can go and wander round. Just don’t get too far from the river. There are dangers in Eden, not least the Elementals. They are spirits meant to protect Eden from intruders, but they don’t like the River of Life that much as it reeks of mortality. You can wander more safely across the river in the Unlikely Forest, where dwell many magical creatures otherwise unknown outside human literature. My good friend Brunhild will look after you if she encounters you there. She is the Queen of the Pegasuses and a person of great power in this realm. She has learned to speak recently, so she can answer your questions.’
‘Will I see a stream of the recently departed flowing down the River?’ Hugo asked a little nervously.
‘No Hugo, for that you need a special commission from the Council, which you do not currently have. So, all well? Now off you go, with one last warning. Things you desire can be made real here, so be careful. You might create something monstrous accidentally.’
Lucacz laughed. ‘But if you want to wish for a bottle of high quality lubricant, it might come in pretty useful soon.’
***
Lucacz stretched himself across the soft grass of Eden as he luxuriated in the aftermath of his first full sex under Hugo. ‘So what was it like, posh boy?’
‘Huh? It measured up to any fuck I’ve had to date.’
‘That’s good right?’
Hugo smiled at the insecurity. ‘I couldn’t tell the difference between that session of intercourse and any I’ve had with a living human. Your body is warm and flexible, and I can feel a heartbeat as I hug you. Also there’s definite evidence that your ersatz prostate is working well: you’ve a sticky dick, baby. And kissing you is now a whole new game: your mouth and tongue are wet and so suckable.’
‘I’m so-o-o thirsty, Hugo. I want something cold and sweet.’
‘The River of Life will do, won’t it?’
‘My new body is demanding sugar of some sort. Oh well, maybe the lady abbess will offer us sweet tea.’
‘We’d better get dressed and head back so we can find out. And Karl said you could return us to Medeln?’
‘It’s them thin barriers. No barrier to your Lucacz now, apparently. Let’s go, Posh Boy.’
‘Better get dressed first unless you want to make a real impact on those nuns. I doubt you’d disconcert my sister like this though. She’s never been easy to shock.’
Hand in hand the pair walked through a shimmering portal and were once again in the abbey’s north aisle. Hugo let out a long breath, while Lucacz gave his hand a squeeze before dropping it. Hugo led the way across to the great cloister and to the door of the abbess’s residence. His sister was waiting.
‘Wow,’ hissed Lucacz,’ she’s tall!’
‘Euphemia, this is Lucacz Marcovic. My boyfriend.’
She took Lucacz’s hand, and gave him a long look, in which surprise briefly featured. ‘A pleasure to meet you young man. I understand you’re from Terlenehem. The name of Marcovic is unfamiliar to me, I’m afraid.’
‘I haven’t lived there for ages, my lady. My family are all dead now.’
‘How did you two meet?’
Lucacz shrugged. ‘Through a friend when Hugo was up in Husbrau a couple of years ago. We live now in Strelsau together.’
Euphemia’s eyebrow rose. ‘Strelsau? It hasn’t been called that since Queen Flavia’s day. An odd turn of phrase you have, Lucacz.’
The revenant boy was becoming flustered under the calm gaze of the nun. ‘Yeah, well …’ he muttered inconsequentially. The prioress gave him a long look and then ushered the two boys up the stairs to find the abbess sitting behind a tea tray in her study.
Hugo bowed to the reverend lady, whom he addressed as ‘Royal and Imperial Highness’ for the Abbess Katherine was both a princess of Rothenia and an archduchess of Austria. She smiled and asked how they’d like their tea. Hugo noticed Lucacz shoving several teaspoonsworth of sugar into his. The revenant winked at Hugo over the lip of his teacup.
‘Now we have some things to talk about,’ the abbess announced. ‘The first and most important is the present state of the resistance in Rothenia. Euphemia has told me the latest news of the war in the East she read in the issue of Vor Svobodjen. It anounces the collapse of the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the beginning of their retreat, while after the German and Italian withdrawal from North Africa Allied landings have occurred in Sicily. We have our contacts and they tell us that pressure is mounting on the Resistance organisations in Rothenia to shift to a more aggressive posture against the occupiers.’
Hugo nodded. ‘Yes my lady. Vor Svobodjen has done a lot in the past three years. It inspired a sabotage movement at Eisendorf and Zenden which has materially slowed down German arms production in Rothenia. But you’ll know General Henry von Tarlenheim has long been planning to mount an insurgency, and he now has his organisation trained, armed and in place.’
‘Yes, and not just him. Bermann’s partisans were not entirely eliminated, and they have recovered some of their strength in their base in Belvoir Forest. And then there is the Communist-inspired movement which has organised in the industrial cities. Have you heard of Wittel Horvath?’
Hugo raised an eyebrow. ‘You seem singularly well-informed, my lady.’
‘And there’s a reason for that, young man. Two days ago we learned of a party of English special service agents who had parachuted into the hill country west of Piotresberh, and were making their way into Ober Husbrau.’
‘We know of no such agents,’ Hugo responded, alarmed.
‘Yet they claim to be SOE operatives, and indeed they are led by a Major Harries, who was active in Husbrau at the time of the Brentheim incident.’
‘Harries,’ Hugo scowled. ‘He doesn’t answer to Martin Tofts’s organisation.’
‘Quite so. It is Herr Horvath he is looking to talk to. A man who also works outside Mr Tofts’s organisation. Now why do you think that they want to meet?’
‘I can only guess, my lady. I need to discuss this development with Martin.’
‘Well I too can guess, and I don’t like the nature of those guesses at all. For it seems to me that London is desperate enough to try playing a double game in Rothenia. And the Russians too have a double game in mind.’
‘I fear you may be right, my lady.’ Hugo was feeling sick. He desperately needed Martin here. The abbess’s meaning was clear. She believed that British were under pressure from Moscow at this critical juncture to let loose the partisans that were under their control on the German occupying forces. But Martin’s organisation was untested and in any case General von Tarlenheim would choose his own best time to begin his campaign. But the Horvath group would be responsive to Moscow’s control, and London had sent Harries to give Horvath assurances of British support and spur him into action. And all behind the back of Martin Tofts.
The abbess continued. ‘And since we’re talking of double games, there is one more concern I must address, and that concerns you young man.’ The abbess looked straight at Lucacz.
‘Me, highness?’ Lucacz was startled.
‘Yes, you. Every abbess of this house has access to its secret registers, and in those books there is much to be learned of the other power that is interested in Rothenia, the realm of the World Beyond. And you, young man, are a citizen of that place. Oh, you are well disguised, but I can sense that you and Karl Wollherz are acquainted and perhaps other of the powers of that place. Do you perhaps know of a being called by some Jonas Niemand?’
‘My lady,’ Hugo intervened. ‘Lucacz may be what you believe him to be, but his concern in this world is my fate alone.’
His sister snapped. ‘Lucacz is a revenant, Hugo. That is no human body he wears, Yet you call him your “boyfriend”. But there can be no such relationship between the living and dead, or none of which any good result can come. You have got yourself in deep trouble. Now let Lucacz answer for himself.’
Lucacz had the look of a cornered rabbit. ‘Er … could I have another tea, my lady?’
She quirked a smile. ‘You need to drink?’
‘Yes, my lady.’
The abbess poured the boy a second cup. He sipped at it appreciatively. She said as she watched him, ‘You are an unusual being Master Lucacz. When were you alive?’
‘Umm. Not good at dates, ma’am. But I remember that the abbess in them days was the sorceress, Maria von Tarlenheim, daughter of the wizard, Count Oskar.’
‘Ah. The reign of Rudolf II, at the end of the seventeenth century.’
‘Lucacz made first communion at this abbey, my lady,’ Hugo chipped in.
‘Indeed? If we have time our librarian would appreciate a conversation with you, young man. She has a deep interest in the abbey’s history, and you might be able to answer some questions she has. But that can wait. In Maria’s day this abbey attracted the interest of one of the great powers of the World Beyond.’
‘Jonas Niemand?’ Lucacz asked.
Abbess Katherine smiled. ‘What do you know of him?’
‘He’s way above my sort of spirit, and my bosses in the Councils of the Dead find him troublesome. But he is very great, he is chief of the angels and the spear in God’s hand, the Destroyer.’
‘So we believe. That he is a spirit of good we have no doubt, but my predecessors and I have come to realise that both he and your masters in the World Beyond are pursuing plans that affect our mission here in Medeln. We don’t like it and so we want to know more of them, and you, Lucacz, may be able to tell us what we need to know.’
‘Am I a captive here, my lady?’
‘I have no doubt that you can sense the power that is lodged in the heart of this abbey, and you will know that it is at the command of myself and the Lady Euphemia.’
The abbess removed the skull brooch from her robe and placed it on the desk. To Hugo’s alarm, a worried Lucacz shrank back in his chair from the women, as if he was under threat.
Posted 28 December 2024