MY HEART IN STONE
PART FIVE:
Mikol made his decision. Cort had had a couple of waking moments now and he
didn't want his subject waking again in this lab-like room in the bowels of the
earth beneath the castle. It was evident that Cort's mind had been damaged at
least slightly, that his memory was not fully intact. Mikol wanted to preserve
as much of what was left of Cort as possible. Just the discovery that he was
not in his movie would be a tremendous shock. It would be better if that
occurred in a more pleasant environment than this windowless chamber with its
banks of monitors, its cabinets of medical supplies.
He watched as Henri pushed up Cort's sleeve, giving him a sedative that would
ensure he did not rouse during the transfer. Cort's eyes started to open as he
felt the movement on his arm, but instantly closed again, his body relaxing
completely. Together, they transferred him onto a gurney and rolled it to the
elevator. This would take them to a concealed chamber in the back of the
building nearest the 38 meter-tall stone tower that dominated the west end of
the castle.
Getting into the tower itself involved a clever maze of passageways, some of them with dead ends, others with secret means of opening a section of wall leading into more passages. When Mikol had had Kamen restored, he'd added his own personal "touches" to the building.
Once one had arrived in the final small chamber, Mikol reached just to the
right of a small wall candle sconce, pressing a particular stone. He'd thought
of having the retina scan here, too, but something in him rather delighted in
the more medieval secret stone. And you didn't just push it straight in. That
would be too simple. No, if you did that, a gas was released that would knock an
intruder off his feet in less than a second. As you pushed, you angled it
inward to the left, then straight, then left again. Performing the proper
sequence, he smiled slightly, recalling one of Sid's spies who'd been caught at
this point. The man had joined Clayton at the bottom of the parapet. Sometimes
he wished Sid sent men more often. It was all very amusing.
The tower elevator opened with a slight hiss and they rose rapidly upwards to
the room beneath the top floor. A case of stone steps, built into the wall
there, curved up to the final level. Henri hurried up them, pressing on a
ceiling panel that slid aside, revealing an entrance. There was no way to get
the gurney further, so Mikol simply slid his arms under Cort and carried
him up the steps into the single round chamber that occupied the entire top
floor. It wasn't as though this room had walls of windows. No, there was but a
single small, square one that overlooked the rest of the castle. The view from
it, however, was spectacular.
A bed with a
massive headboard of carved cherry wood occupied a space opposite the window.
The furnishings were sparse...a small table, two chairs, and a single end table
with a lamp next
to the bed. A little section of the round room had been partitioned off with
simple bathroom facilities. To the left of the window, a metal spiral staircase
curved up to a padlocked trapdoor, leading to the circular walkway atop the
tower. Cleverly concealed about the room were cameras that would monitor Cort's
every move as well as highly technical sensing devices calibrated to keep a
constant check on his vital functions. It was, indeed, only because he could
still monitor Cort's health so fully that he dared move him yet.
He lay Cort on the bed, atop the brown velvet spread. Cort was still fully
clothed in his pastor's garb, even to his boots. Mikol wanted him to find
himself dressed thusly when he came to full awareness. That was especially
important now that Cort thought he was still in his movie. Anything that would
mitigate the shock at this point was a good thing. Mikol frowned slightly,
looking at Cort. Would the priest be able to handle this? Or would he, like
Clayton, simply go mad? At that thought, he sprinted up the spiral steps,
double-checking the large padlock. Yes, quite secure. Back beside the bed, he
turned to Henri. "We can go now. He'll sleep for at least another two hours.
You, however, do not take your eyes off the monitors when you get back
down below."
Henri dipped his head in acknowledgement, gave Cort one last cursory check, then
went down the stone steps toward the elevator. Mikol followed, pressing the
panel that slid into place above his head, settling in flat and perfectly smooth
so that no trace of it showed in the floor of Cort's room.
An hour passed. Then 30 more minutes. Cort's fingers moved slightly over the
spread, feeling the smooth softness of the velvet upon which he lay. His arm
felt heavy, slightly disconnected, and for several moments he did nothing more
than let his fingers move on the velvet as his mind slowly began to clear. The
texture beneath his exploring fingertips was soft, reminding him
of...something. Oh, yes, his grandmother's shawl. His lips curved in a small
smile as a picture of her wearing it formed in his memory. He was in her lap
as she sat in her rocker near the fireplace and he had his cheek pressed just
below her shoulder. The shawl was blue. Many, many years before, his
grandfather had bought it for her from a traveling salesman he'd encountered
while in town for supplies. He'd spent way too much money on it, but he wanted
it for her, he wanted to see her face when he gave it to her, he wanted to wrap
her in it like some precious gift.
Cort had never met his grandfather, killed in a fall from a horse before he was
born. But a man who had loved his grandmother like that...he'd always known he
would have loved him, too. And he did love the thought of him, of that
never-encountered yet highly-regarded forebear of his. He lay there on the
velvet spread, letting his memory wander on the sacred grounds where his
grandmother still had her being. He could feel the motion of her rocking, hear
the beating of her heart beneath the softness of the blue shawl and he let
himself settle into it with a quiet sigh of contentment. It was all he'd ever
known of home, his only experience of it. His eyes flew open. Wasn't it?
Where had that sharp prick that unexpectedly pierced him come from?
Eyes now open, he saw the ceiling of the room he was in. What? It was... round.
He'd never heard of a round room before. He jerked his head to the side. Hadn't
he been in a room above the saloon when last he woke? He'd thought so. What
was...this? How was he now in a different place? He squeezed his eyes tightly
shut. Maybe it would go away? Maybe he was simply dreaming? He must've been hurt
in the explosion. A brick probably got his head or something. That had to be it.
Then...someone...had come along and got him out from under the rubble, had
helped him into the saloon. That was right...wasn't it?
His breath burst out with a gasp. ELLEN! He still didn't know what had happened.
Where was Herod? None of this made any sense! His heart rate soared.
Henri pressed a buzzer, alerting Mikol who appeared suddenly, wraith-like over
his shoulder, studying the monitors. "Give him a moment," Mikol said levelly,
"to gather himself."
"Or to fall completely apart," Henri added soundlessly, knowing well that
nothing less than the complete tilting of his universe was about to befall the
young man in the tower.
Cort sat up, bracing himself as he let the sudden swirling in his head subside.
Then he moved his legs over the edge of the bed, standing. He fell heavily on
his knees and gritting his teeth, used the side of the bed to heft himself
upright again. His focus was on the small window, the single opening in the
walls of this room. Staggering still, he forced his unwilling legs to carry him
across the floor. Only by grabbing the iron grillwork over the glass was he
able to keep to his feet as he looked out.
As far as he could see, forested hills spread out, clouds nestled mistily in the
the concave swells of valleys. He blinked rapidly, then looked down, finding
the stone vessel that was Kamen below.
Turning, he braced his back against the wall, sliding slowly down it until he was seated on the floor, his knees bent, the backs of his hands resting on them, his face buried in his hands. His hair dangled, swinging slightly as he rocked back and forth, desperate to find his way back to his grandmother's shawl.
A pink building, Terry had said, a mini-hotel, assuring her that it was not a hostel, but a simple little hotel that would put her in the heart of the city and allow her access to community flow that a modern, more posh hotel would not have. So, many hours of flight and a layover in Munich led her to a train-ride straight into Hromada that gave her some respite in the form of a cat nap and a hot meal. Now she stood outside the pink mini-hotel, the hour of the day vaguely known to her as late morning, her baggage settled next to her with the help of the taxi driver, who seemed pleased to bring her to a part of his country where the 20th century, or even the 21st, seemed never to have arrived.
What captivated her, though, at the moment, wasn’t the cheerful color of the building or the neatly displayed trinkets for tourists to discover in the shops nearby. It was the iconography of the Virgin Mary painted in the middle of the façade. Rachel was too brain-dead to try and puzzle out its age, but the more she looked at it, the deeper its paints and colors seemed to go, layer upon layer, intricacy on top of intricacy. Beauty in the most mundane of places and in places where she sought the most solace. Despite her weariness, her rising crankiness, her need for a large soft mattress to fall into, Rachel found herself smiling for simple pleasure.
“It's a pretty thing!” cried the old gentleman sweeping the front door stoop. He had silently slipped into the front entrance, watching her look up at the icon, cocking a bushy set of eyebrows at her in friendly greeting. He was bone thin, and his old fashioned trousers, shirt and braces seemed on the verge of being too big for him, hanging from his frame in a state of non-fill. As if to play upon her sense of incongruity, he sported a pointed purplish hat with glittery stars painted on it, a goofy touristy bauble from the gift shop next door. He waved her on into the lobby, setting the broom aside as she passed, sweeping off the hat to toss onto the desk behind the counter.
“Yes it is. How old is it and who painted it?” Rachel asked, secretly hoping the explanation wouldn’t be too long, secretly glad she would not have to use up what brain cells she had left to figure out simple questions in Czech.
“I was thinking of your brooch,” the old gentleman replied with a smile. With a wink and a nod, he flourished a long pen the color of wood and moved to enter her name in the registrar. “You look tired, so I will save the story of the icon for later. How long will you be staying?”
She repeated what Terry had given her as the account she would need for an open-ended stay and the gentleman seemed to take it all in with no change to his smile, no questions or curiosity. A weary thought crossed her mind that she could well become a permanent resident, if things went…badly….
The room was everything Terry said it would be, recommendations based on previous stays of his own. It was too painful at the time to wonder just exactly how and why Terry would find himself in Hromada…a story for another day, it would seem…so she made her phone calls to her father (who sounded unabashedly relieved) and to Terry (who sounded even more stressed out than he was when she left), opened her baggage, took a brief shower and passed out on the bed, her wet hair still wrapped in a towel, snuggled into a warm robe.
She lay in the bed for about an hour after her eyes flew open, many hours later, trying to recall dreams, even when those dreams had been frightening and disturbing, as if they contained some piece of news, some tattered bit of information that she would be doomed if she lost. Her stomach was growling again and the clock said eight thirty. Looking at the sky outside her window did not tell her much about whether that was in the morning or evening; she had yet to see which way the sun was oriented and there was an orange glow in the sky still. Either way, there had to be a means of getting something to eat, so she got dressed, brushed out her static-plagued hair, and went downstairs.
The local pub offered the best fare for what she needed at the moment, and now that she was ensconced in Hromada, Rachel decided to allow herself a bit of relaxation. She watched the cook labor over the old brick open oven, turning over sizzling meat, calling out to familiar patrons with happy remarks. Young and old filled the low-ceilinged pub and Rachel absorbed the sounds of various dialects around her: English, Russian, Australian, German, Spanish, even a couple of Americans.
If only she had Cort with her to share it with, came the reflexive thought.
It had turned out it was eight-thirty in the evening, which put her in a bit of a quandary because now she was going to have to find a way to get into the diurnal rhythm of the town before she was able to make any headway in finding Kamen. She took what was left of her large portion of food back to the hotel, and made an attempt to line her things up for what she would have to do twelve hours later.
Then, she lay back down and curled up with a pillow, having no desire to watch television or watch the street below sparkle with visitors celebrating life. She wrapped the pillow with the shirt she had brought with her from the little blue house. The scent was faded somewhat now, but she didn’t care. It was a pathetic thing, to be sure, to lie in a fetal position with a piece of scrap to cling to, but for now, her first night in a strange country, it was all she had.
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