All too often Hugo von Tarlenheim caught himself wondering when he would again see those magical boys who had accosted him in the park of the Great House. That was one of the reasons he stayed on in Ober Husbrau. Another was the fact that he could live happily at the Great House rent free, and avail himself of its stables.
He was out riding along the ridge above the Great House when he at last encountered Karl Wollherz once again; the boy himself was cantering towards him mounted on a fine chestnut mare. The child gave him a cheery grin and a wave as he approached. They drew up together, and Hugo’s mount made a strange sort of genuflection under him, in the direction of the boy and his horse. Karl gave a little laugh. ‘Your mount is very smart. He recognises my Brunhild, and knows her for what she is, the empress of all equines.’
‘She is certainly a fine beast,’ Hugo observed, ‘but empress …?’
The boy seemed to listen to something other than Hugo and added, ‘She recognises you too as a fine beast, from the Tarlenheim herd.’
‘That’s … er … very polite of her,’ Hugo replied.
‘This is her first trip back to the mundane world in a long time. She says the grass tastes different from what she remembers. She also asks if it’s true that human beings fly these days?’
‘Yes, er … though only in machines made for the purpose.’
‘Brunhild has a certain professional interest in flight, for in our World Beyond she is queen of the pegasuses.’
Hugo was beginning to think the child would rabbit on endlessly on the subject of his horse unless he could be diverted. ‘And what brings you two here from the … er … World Beyond.’
‘Oh yes! Something very important. We must go to the ruined castle. Many are coming, and they’ll need our help so they don’t go without talking to us first.’ He sighed. ‘Fortunately you have the clear sight, so you can help us too … though I don’t think you’ll necessarily like it very much.’
***
There was little doubt that Theo Ignacij was smitten with their temporary guest, Gottleib. His eyes followed the other boy everywhere, and he resigned his music room to Waclaw and Gottleib’s use without protest. Martin hoped that this fixation might dislodge the hold that Hugo von Tarlenheim had over Theo’s libido, not that Gottleib would respond to any sexual advances from Theo’s direction, he was Waclaw’s boy, heart and soul. But Theo enjoyed showing Gottleib around his city, and they would walk the streets for hours. They could do this in relative safety as Martin’s network could provide Gottleib with a set of very convincing papers including a medical certificate from the proper authority declaring that Gottleib was exempt from the military call-up.
In the meantime Martin was absorbed with the aftermath of the rail sabotage in Merz. London was clamouring for information: the amount of damage the attack had done to the German war effort; the possibility of more such attacks; the reliability of Bermann’s group in northern Rothenia. Meanwhile General von Tarlenheim’s ex-military network was feeling threatened by Bermann’s precipitate action, and Martin suspected they thought the SOE was conspiring with Bermann behind their back.
‘The thing is Martin,’ the general himself told him, ‘The strike against the rail network may have seemed to be a heavy blow against the Nazi war effort, and in the short term it was. But it has called down just the sort of retribution and reaction we had hoped to avoid until better days, when our underground army is in the field. The village of Brentheim near the site was surrounded by SS troops, the women and smaller children hauled off by lorries to God knows where, and a hundred males aged 14 and over taken to a quarry and murdered on the spot. The staromanij of the surrounding townships were arrested and taken to view the corpses, then they and their families were taken into Gestapo custody as hostages for the future good behaviour of their communities. Bermann’s partisans are being hunted across Husbrau and they’re not so popular locally that the people of the region will give their lives to protect them. This blow is likely to be the only one they’ll ever strike.
‘Old Sachert is apoplectic with rage. “That’s what you get when you don’t prepare the ground!” he yelled. He suspects colleagues of yours in the SOE as having been active in Husbrau and encouraging Bermann. He thinks that Bermann has set back effective resistance in Rothenia for two years. He was angry enough to express his good wishes for the Gestapo’s hunt for him. Our caches of arms in Husbrau are inaccessible for the foreseeable future because of the intense Nazi security there.’
Martin offered his sympathies and promised to convey the general’s views back to London, though there was not much else he could do.
***
Hugo and Karl dismounted in the inner court of the old castle. They found several beings already there. Karl leapt off Brunhild and was in amongst what looked like a group of other lads, though Hugo was pretty sure they weren’t any sort of ordinary human youths. Karl pulled one particular teenager over to introduce to Hugo.
‘Hugo, this is Lucacz Marcovic. He’s a very old friend of mine. Believe it or not, he used to work for your family.’
Hugo looked closely at this youth. Like Karl there was something about Lucacz that his senses refused to accept, and his eyes had a light in them which was decidedly unearthly. Other than that though the boy seemed solid enough. Unlike Karl however there was something about the youth that stirred Hugo in a way he had never felt before. Lucacz was very handsome, quite as beautiful as Karl, and he seemed to be naked, though like Karl his appearance in this reality appeared to flicker. But it was more than just that Lucacz was physically attractive.
Lucacz looked at him with laughing eyes. ‘Confused?’ he asked.
‘You could say that. Er … when were you employed by us Tarlenheims?’
Lucacz laughed, a sound that was pure delight. ‘Difficult to say. You know I’m dead, right?’
‘I had assumed as much.’
‘Very dry, Hugo. Point is that we lose track of the living world. So I have no idea how long it’s been since I died — of a slow fever when I was seventeen if you’re interested.’ Lucacz seemed to give some more internal consideration to the question. ‘Oh! I remember! The count in those days was the Lord Sergius, son of the wicked Count Oskar, who everybody said was a wizard.’
Hugo’s eyebrows raised and his eyes widened. ‘My God! That was maybe 250 years ago.’
‘That long? Gosh!’
‘Tell me, Lucacz, why are we here?’
‘Didn’t Karl tell you? There’s going to be a lot of young people dying and they’ll need help passing over. So he got together a gang of us to help.’
‘How can I help?’
‘You can see us in our true form; it’s called the “clear sight”. But also I can tell you have what they call “the mark of greatness” on you.’ Lucacz gave a very human grin. ‘Also you’re damned cute.’
‘I thought dead people would be beyond all that,’ Hugo remarked hesitantly.
Lucacz actually guffawed with adolescent amusement. ‘You’re so funny Hugo. I wish I’d known you when I was alive. But if I had you’d have probably taken a stick to me. Funny thing, you look a bit like a Tarlenheim boy I did know then, his name was Boromeo. He was a bit snooty though, being a Freiherr and all, and he had no time for a humble stable lad, as I was. You, on the other hand …’ Lucacz did not finish his statement, but instead squeezed Hugo’s hand with his, a hand that seemed to be warm and alive. The look in his eyes was very familiar from the would-be seducers in the White Tree who had attempted to get Hugo into their beds. But in Lucacz’s case he could hardly resent it or indeed accept the implications, for Lucacz was dead.
***
The first of the newly dead came drifting into the castle courtyard in the late afternoon. At first they could barely be seen.
Karl called Hugo over as the first phantom appeared. ‘Kneel down here Hugo and watch,’ he ordered, ‘his spirit will solidify more as he gets closer to the ruined chapel, because that’s where the barriers between this world and the World Beyond are thinnest. It’s what’s drawing them here.’
Indeed, the phantom’s face became clearly distinguishable as that of a young teenage boy, even down to his freckles and sandy hair. His body on the other hand was still indistinct. Karl took the boy’s hands, and at that he became more corporeal and fully realised.
‘Who are you? Where am I?’ he asked, an edge of fright in the tremor in his voice.
‘What’s your name, kid?’ Karl responded.
‘The Germans! Where’d they go? Oh God! The guns, the screams, the falling bodies! The pain in my guts …’
‘Calm down, kid,’ Lucacz urged, taking the boy round the shoulder. ‘They can’t touch you now. You’re safe. Now, answer Karl, what’s your name?’
‘Er ….’ the boy hesitated, as if he was struggling to remember. ‘I’m Aleksandr … er … Jankovic. Yes. Aleksandr. They call me Sanczu. But who are you people?’
‘We’re friends. You’re safe now, Sanczu,’ reassured Karl. ‘We’re here to take you and your friends from Brentheim to your new home where nothing can ever threaten you again. Your dad will be here soon.’
‘My dad?’
‘He’ll be along in just a few moments,’ Karl responded with a smile.
‘But my dad died two years ago. Pneumonia.’
‘In your world he did, but he still lives in our world. And … well, here he is.’
Suddenly a big man with a glorious smile was bending over the group.
‘Dad! It is you. Daddy!’
The man picked up and hugged his child, who hugged him back frantically. He carried him off in the direction of the chapel. As they approached its doorway they slowly faded. Karl nodded. ‘That’s what’s needed. Can you do it, Hugo?’
‘Erm … but I don’t know where it is they’re going after they disappear.’
Karl shrugged. ‘That’s why Lucacz is here. Let him help you. Now I have to get on, they’re beginning to arrive. So many of them.’
‘Hey? You okay, Hugo?’ A concerned Lucacz asked. ‘I know this must be weird to you.’
‘That kid is dead, Lucacz. He was murdered horribly and died in pain and fear.’
‘Yes?’
‘I can’t be indifferent to his suffering.’
‘I can’t be either, Hugo. The thing is you’re still alive, but I’m not. I know what you don’t.’
‘Which is what, Dead Boy?’
Lucacz grinned, ‘Cheeky cunt. The fact is that I know for sure and certain what you don’t, that death is not the end, but the beginning of something far greater.’ Three more boys began to materialise just beside Hugo and Lucacz, their faces showing puzzlement rather than fear. ‘Hello lads,’ Hugo said. As they focussed on him they became more solid, two of them obviously twins of about fifteen and alongside them an eighteen-year-old, who might well have been their elder brother. It was he who replied.
‘Are we dead? Those Nazi bastards …’
Lucacz gave a slight smile. ‘Can’t fool you lads from Brentheim. Sorry, but yes this is the afterlife. What’s your names.’
‘I’m Anton, this pair are Mikhel and Jan, who’d still be alive if they’d done what I told them to, and made a run into the woods.’
The twins exchanged wry glances. ‘Still bossing us around, dead or not,’ one of them observed, and they both shared a chuckle. Hugo was impressed that sibling rivalry could even trump death. ‘But you threw yourself over us when the shooting started, Anton,’ said Mikhel.
Jan shrugged, ‘Not that it did any good. One fucker came round and shot us in the head after we were all down. Still, all credit to you Anton. More than I would have expected of you. Dad would be proud.’
‘So who’re you two?’ Anton growled, ‘and where’s this? It don’t look like heaven, or hell for that matter.’
Lucacz shrugged. ‘We’re your guides. I’m Lucacz and I died nearly 250 years ago, so I’ve got a lot of experience on this side of the veil. Hugo here is a bit more special. He’s still alive but he’s one of those rare living guys who can see us as we are on this side.
‘So what’s next?’ Anton pursued.
‘We’ve checked your identity and you’ve accepted your current state, now you’ll tell us your last experiences so you can move on and get to grips with what it means to join the Dead. First though, are you awaiting anyone? Er … was your father with you in the quarry, or anyone else responsible for you?’
‘Our uncle Piotr was rounded up with the rest, our dad is working away from home.’ Suddenly Anton’s face fell. ‘Oh God! Poor dad! He’ll be shattered.’
Lucacz looked sympathetic, but then said. ‘It won’t be long until you see him again.’
‘What? How do you …?’ Then Anton nodded, ‘Oh yeah. I get it. In his anger and loss, he’ll join the partisans and die in a shootout with the Nazis in two years’ time. But how did I know that?’
Lucacz grinned. ‘Congratulations, Anton. You’re a Seer! You have a gift much appreciated amongst our people. How about you two?’ Lucacz grinned at the twins, who just looked blank. ‘So what happens next is that you will pass into the World Beyond. It’s an amazing place though the journey through it is not straightforward.
‘Walk into that chapel there and you’ll go through a portal into a very strange and debatable land which is sometimes called Eden. Exactly where you’ll appear there depends on your personality and spiritual qualities, and you’ll not necessarily be there all together. But don’t worry, just head downriver, that’s the only clue I can give you. You’ll find help along the way, and eventually you’ll be all three reunited by the Isles of the Blessed. And once there, someone will tell you what happens next. Ready? Any more questions?’
The three brothers gave a gesture between a shrug and a nod, and followed Lucacz towards the chapel door, leaving Hugo standing indecisive in the court. He looked around and gave a start. Another phantom had appeared close up beside him.
It spoke as he was pulling himself together. ‘Oops, sorry kid. Did I make you start? Where am I?’ The newcomer was an elderly man by his speech, but as he manifested his body was that of a younger one. He stretched and flexed. ‘My word, I feel better than I’ve done for years. None of that blasted arthritis. But I have a feeling that this is no earthly body, is it? And who are you lad? No offence but you don’t seem like no angel.’
Hugo mustered a smile. ‘I’m a sort of receptionist, I suppose. What’s your name, sir?’
‘It’s Marek Arno Willigs, son.’
‘And you realise that you’re dead?’
‘Oh yes. Those Nazi bastards in the black uniforms lined up with machine guns were there to do murder. Damn them. Those poor boys with me didn’t deserve this. But now I guess I move on.’
‘Yes sir. If I may say so you seem ready for the afterlife.’
‘Oh yes. My last birthday was my eightieth. That’s ten beyond the three score and ten the scriptures promise us. You think a lot about how it will all end the older you get, though I didn’t expect it was to be shot by Hitler’s thugs. So what next, lad? And who or what are you by the way? You don’t seem dead to me.’
‘My name’s Hugo von Tarlenheim.’
‘That’s a famous name you carry, son. Now I think of it, you Tarlenheims have a reputation for the uncanny, and for a strange relationship with death. I suppose this is just one other example of it.’
‘I won’t argue with that, Herr Willigs.’ Hugo found with relief he could muster a laugh at the man’s irony. ‘And I am here to tell you that the answers you want are through that ruined chapel, for beyond it is another world called Eden in which I am told you’ll be tested as you progress on to the Isles of the Blessed, which themselves will only be another stage on your way. But what comes after that, I do not know. But I’m told that once in Eden, you’re to follow the river. That’s all the help I can give you, I’m afraid.’
‘That’ll be enough, I suppose. Just tell me this. You’re still part of the living world. Will you help carry on the fight against those Nazi bastards? I’d be happier to leave this world if I could be sure that its young people will fight on for great Rothenia, and maybe that one day the Crown of Tassilo would be placed again on the head of an Elphberg king. It all went wrong when the fools voted out King Maxim. Republics weren’t intended to be for the likes of the Rothenian people. No damned president or prime minister could ever bless his people with a pensk pozechnen.’
‘I’m a Tarlenheim, Herr Willigs, so you can be sure that I’ll join the good fight. My uncle, General Henry von Tarlenheim, has already laid the foundations of the underground army that will one day chase the Nazi Reich out of Holy Rothenia, and I think that the forces of the World Beyond are massing to lend us help. Sir, are you expecting anyone to join you on your way?’
‘No, son. My little grandson and his mother were taken off in lorries by the Nazis while the village men were being rounded up. My son-in-law works in Eisendorf. Poor lad. God knows how he’ll cope with all this. I hope he’ll join your underground army. If he does, and if you meet him, give him my blessing. His name is Marcus Pelikan. Anyway, time to go. Good luck to you, young man. I imagine your life is going to be more challenging in its way than my afterlife.’
The old man smiled a peculiarly sweet and sad smile then walked briskly and with no reluctance through the arch of the ruined chapel, his form fading as he did so. Hugo looked around and saw no new manifestations that seemed to concern him. His supernatural colleagues were likewise unengaged. They stood around in groups, chatting and apparently commenting humorously on this small corner of the material world they were temporarily reoccupying.
The group of ghosts suddenly turned and looked in Hugo’s direction. A manifestation had appeared at his elbow. It was Karl Wollherz, and he was not alone.
‘Thanks for your help, dear Hugo. I’ve brought someone who is keen to meet you, a member of your family in fact.’
Hugo surveyed the tall man standing next to him, dressed in a green uniform belonging to the last century. That he was a Tarlenheim was clear enough, indeed he bore a strong resemblance to Hugo’s cousin, Welf von Tarlenheim zu Templerstadt. The man gave an inclination of the head in greeting.
‘Count Hugo, hello. I’m pleased to find that several of our family have rallied to the national cause in this evil time.’
Hugo suddenly realised who it was he was speaking to. ‘You’re Oskar Maxim, count in Tarlenheim, my grandfather’s brother, the enemy of the Thuringian usurpers.’
The man smiled. ‘So I’m still remembered? I’m pleased, though a bit surprised. Most of my career was after all passed in the shadows of the secret service which I created.’
‘It’s what happened afterwards. Welf has a lot to say about your post mortem service to the Elphberg monarchy. Er … I have to ask … is it true that you duelled with King Albrecht at the Schloss Ernsthof, taking possession of Welf’s body, and so allowing little Prince Leo to escape to Rothenia and his grandfather’s protection? It was always one of my favourite family stories when I was little.’
‘I have to say that was one of the things I have most enjoyed doing since I left the living world. I deserved that rematch. It was such fun inspiring the fear of hell in that conscienceless thug. Albrecht did not play fair when we met that morning in the park of Bila Palacz. But my death served the cause better than my victory would have done, so I should not complain. We do even things up in the World Beyond, as you may be realising by now.’
Hugo looked at Karl Wollherz. ‘Why am I here, sir? It seems to me there is a purpose in the revelations you have offered me. Am I right in thinking that the Dead have singled me out for a reason?’
The revenant smiled. ‘You’ve been given a glimpse of the World Beyond, Hugo, and the way it receives the victims of the living world’s evil. Count Oskar asked that you be given this privilege, for your fate is known to our Seers, and he says you deserve more preparation for it than he was given.’
‘So my fate will be his? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘That is what I am saying.’
***
Hugo returned to the Great House after his interview with the shades of Karl Wollherz and Count Oskar Maxim. He was the only member of the family in residence at that time, and he decided that knocking round a big, empty house would do nothing for him, as he attempted to come to terms with what was in effect his death sentence. He really needed to be amongst people. So he packed his bag, walked into town and took the evening train down the Taveln valley to Strelzen. The house on the Wejg was empty when he reached it, apart from Gottleib, who made him a tea. They chatted a while about Strelzen life, about which Gottleib was enthusiastic.
‘Of course I miss old Heilbrod,’ the youth confessed, ‘ but it’s so quiet, especially when his royal highness is elsewhere. He takes Waclaw with him on most of his trips, but I belong to the Heilbrod establishment, so I have to stay in the Rheinpfalz when he goes. It’s just too quiet there at times.’
‘Hmm,’ agreed Hugo, ‘I could say the same about Tarlenheim. Just rattling round in a big old house all on my own is depressing. I was a kid down in Fürstenburg and what friends of my age I have are down in the south, and not up north. And none of them are queer, so no possibility of our sort of fun.’
Gottleib grinned. ‘We can go out to the White Tree if you’d like.’
Hugo looked in the boy’s face. He wasn’t being given a come-on by Gottleib. He smiled and said thank-you, promising to take him up on his kind offer some time soon.
Hugo decided on an early night, though when he undressed and slipped into his bed it was a while before his mind would settle. He had learned truths few if any other human beings were privy to, other than prophets and saints, and he was neither. Strangely he did not feel fear at the revelation, which was perhaps the intention of the Dead. But he did feel disappointment, and he was haunted by what he heard of the last hours of the brothers, Anton, Mikhel and Jan. He wondered if he would face his own impending death with their courage. Eventually, as the clock of the nearby church of St Anthony tolled out eleven he threw off the coverlet and began caressing his cock into life, hoping a wank would help.
It took a while till his imagination settled on a fantasy that got him satisfactorily erect. Strangely it was on the figure of Lucacz Marcovic that his mind settled, and his fantasy unrolled in which he was a young Tarlenheim lord in the time of Rudolf II who kept getting interested looks from Lucacz as a humble stable lad, a mutual fascination he consummated by forcefully taking the boy’s virginity in the domain woodlands.
As climax tensed Hugo’s body and his ejaculation sent several white spurts high above his naked body to spatter down on his chest and face he heard a voice saying. ‘Wow! That looked like fun. You called, my lord?’
Lucacz Marcovic had manifested sitting, also naked, on the bedside chair.
Posted 21 December 2024