Palace of the Damned. Darren Shan
mortal should have a name,” Mr Tiny murmured. “It separates you from the beasts of the wild. How about we call him… Gavner Purl?”
Larten blinked dumbly. “As good a name as any, I suppose.”
“Then Gavner Purl it is.” Mr Tiny smiled and licked his lips. “Now that we’ve named him, how about we carve him up and share him between us? Little Gavner looks tasty.”
“Leave him alone,” Larten snapped, standing quickly and snatching the boy from the drooling man in the yellow suit.
“Be careful,” Mr Tiny said coldly. “I don’t take kindly to orders. If I want the child, I’ll take him.” He smiled again. “But I don’t. You can have the mewling, bony thing. I already ate today.” Mr Tiny nodded politely at Larten and turned towards the exit.
“Wait!” Larten called him back. “You cannot simply walk out on us. You never answered my question about why you saved me.”
Mr Tiny shrugged. “And I have no intention of doing so. I helped you because it was my wish. That’s all you need to know.”
“And now you are just going to leave me?” Larten asked.
“Yes,” Mr Tiny said. “I’ve done all that I care to do for you. You’re on your own from this point on.”
“What if I jump into the chasm again?”
“You won’t,” Mr Tiny said confidently.
“But how will we get out of here?” Larten roared as Mr Tiny headed for the tunnel. “The baby cannot endure the cold much longer. I do not know where we are. We have nothing to eat. How will we survive and get back to civilisation?”
“You’ll find a way, I’m sure,” Mr Tiny answered without looking round. And then he was gone, leaving an astonished Larten and a hungry Gavner Purl alone with the dead in the palace of coffins and ice.
CHAPTER FOUR
As the engine roared and the aircraft picked up speed and bounced over the grass, Larten glanced around and thought, This is never going to fly! The wings looked like six boxes, three on either side, a mix of bamboo and silk, joined by something that Alberto had called aluminium. How could a contraption like this ever leave the ground?
“Go on, Vur!” Alicia cried, shaking her fist in the light of the almost full moon. “You can do it!”
Alberto stood next to her, doubled over with laughter. He’d told Larten not to try – no amateur could fly his 14-bis, his beloved bird of prey – but Alicia had dared him and Larten never backed away from a dare.
“By the black blood of Harnon Oan!” Larten growled, then pulled on the lever that was meant to control the craft. To his astonishment – as well as Alicia’s and Alberto’s – the aircraft lifted a few feet. He flew for all of five seconds before the wheels hit the ground. He thought that would be the end of it, but the aircraft continued to power ahead, and when he tried the lever again he rose maybe nine feet in the air and flew for eighty or ninety feet before crashing back to earth.
One of the wings dipped and tipped towards the ground. Moments later the aircraft screeched to an abrupt halt and Larten was thrown forward to roll across the grass until he came to a painful stop.
“Vur!” Alicia yelled, racing after him. “Are you all right? Have you broken any bones, my darling?”
“I am intact,” Larten muttered, standing and wincing.
When Alicia saw that he hadn’t been seriously injured, she threw herself into his arms and knocked him down again. Larten was laughing by the time Alberto caught up with him, mock-wrestling with the beautiful Alicia.
“That was superb!” Alberto applauded. “It must have been a hundred feet at least.”
“I think slightly less,” Larten said.
“Even so… magnifique! I’ve managed no more than two hundred feet myself and I’m an expert.”
“You do not need to be an expert to fly one of these,” Larten sniffed. “Just insane.”
“Didn’t you enjoy it, darling?” Alicia asked.
“No,” he grunted. “Monsieur Santos-Dumont and the Wright Brothers can wage their war for the air without me. I have experienced all the joys of flight I ever intend to. It is a crazy form of transport, Alberto. If you heed my advice, you will get out of this business immediately. There is no future in aircrafts.”
With that, the smiling vampire turned his back on the shuddering machine and never stepped aboard an aeroplane again.
Paris in 1906 was a chic, vibrant, multi-layered wonder. The Eiffel Tower, still standing seventeen years after it had been erected as a temporary exhibit for the Universal Exposition, was the tallest building in the world. The métro had opened six years ago, providing Parisians with a fascinating ride deep beneath the streets. The city was flooded with artists, many hoping to improve on the advances made some years earlier by the Impressionists. It had the most acclaimed museums, the finest restaurants, the rowdiest nightlife. From the respectability of the Louvre to the seediness of the Moulin Rouge, Paris had something for everyone.
For Larten Crepsley, above all else it had Alicia Dunyck, a woman with whom he’d fallen in love.
They had met for the first time four years earlier, when Larten fetched up in Paris at random. He had been going by the name of Vur Horston, which was how Alicia still knew him. After what he had done on the ship to Greenland, he wanted to try and forget about Larten Crepsley, at least for a while, possibly forever.
Gavner brought the pair of them together. The baby had survived the trek back from the icy wastes and grown into a sturdy little boy. It would have been easy for Larten to rear him as his son, but he didn’t feel that he had the right. He had never lost sight of the fact that he had killed the boy’s parents. He believed it would be hypocrisy of the highest order if he took their place and let the boy love him as a father.
Although Larten fed and cared for Gavner on their way back, he was stern with the boy and refused to treat him with love. He believed a night would come when he and the adult Gavner Purl must address the nature of his foul crime. He didn’t want any sort of emotional attachment to confuse the orphan when that night came.
Larten tried to offload the boy a number of times, but nobody seemed to want him. He could have abandoned Gavner and left him to the workings of fate, but he needed to be sure that the boy would have a chance to prosper. So he kept Gavner by his side longer than he would have liked, crossing the world with no real plan, waiting for the right set of parents to accept the growing child.
In Paris he finally found a home for the boy. He had made money gambling, and attracted a wealthy circle of fair-weather friends. He had no interest in these vain, frivolous people except to find parents for Gavner. Wealth wasn’t important to Larten, but the rich had a much easier time in life than the poor, so he thought he might as well settle the boy with a prosperous couple.
He met Alicia by chance. She was the cousin of one of the men he gambled with. She came one night to experience a little of her cousin’s sordid world. Alicia stood out among the others in the saloon. She didn’t consider herself superior to the women of low class or the men of dark vices, or look upon them with disdain. But there was a sadness in her expression as she watched the lost creatures chase their petty pleasures. Larten, who knew much about sadness, was moved by it and made an excuse to talk with her and meet her again in a place more fitting than a den of wine, women and cards.
Alicia was suspicious of the pale, scarred, orange-haired man of mystery. There were many rumours about the strange Vur Horston, that he’d made his money from the illegal slave trade, that he was a highly paid assassin, that he avoided the sun because he had signed a contract with the devil and would burst into flame if exposed to the pure light of the day world.
“Nothing