The Ice Man Cometh
#45 of The Moonrise Chronicles
The man
sat up, still as cold as ice. It was a wonder his skin didn't crack under the tension it had to be under from the frigid temperatures.. He coughed
a few times, sending out little puffs of condensation before turning his attention back to the sightseers surrounding his
coffin.
"Good
day to you my friends."
No one
there understood a word he was saying. It was Old Italian, from the Renaissance,
and even a modern Italian might have had trouble deciphering even the simple
phrase he was speaking. His words were slow and measured, but tight and set through chattering teeth. Not knowing any language outside of his native English,
Edward was left wondering what the man was trying to say.
The man
with the frost on his nose saw the blank
looks on their faces and stopped. He reached over the side and felt around,
coming away with one of the rings. He grabbed Edward's hand and slipped it on.
"Is that better?"
Edward's
eyes went wide. "How did you do that?"
Leonardo
smiled. "I did nothing. It is the rings. They have many uses, and not the least
of those is allowing our kind to communicate across the barriers of culture and
language. Nothing is more dismal than sitting around in a circle, scratching
fleas, trying to have a decent conversation in wolf-speak."
He
unsteadily climbed out of the casket, thankful for Edward's steadying hand. His
fingers felt like icicles. "Thank you my boy. I don't know how long I've have
been in there, but it seems to me to have been an extraordinarily long while."
"Almost
five hundred years I'd say."
"Really?
How remarkable! I never figured the cooling system would last half that long. I
must consider myself most fortunate."
"So you
developed cryogenics?"
"Cryo-genics?
What an ingenious term! I suppose it's something like that. But don't go
getting anything stuck in your head now. As far as I know it only works on the
kind. And speaking of which," here he looked around at the group, "who are all
of you and what do you need from me?"
The
first part was easy. After retrieving Maggie's ring, they sat around talking to
the master for hours. He was very much desirous to leave his chamber and see
the world as it had become in his absence. They regaled him with the
highlights, since there was too much cover with a month or more.
He was
intrigues my Maggie's light, and he spent several minutes at a time cranking
it. "Extraordinary! A light without flame. This is beyond my scope of
learning!"
"That's
nothing! We have automobiles, and airplanes, and cell phones and..."
Leonardo
halted her long enough to ask, "Do you
mean to say you have vehicles that move under their own power? No horses?"
"Yes,
and machines that can think, and images that can be transmitted through the
air, and so much more!"
"It is good
to know that there were others who followed me with enough sense to continue
with science despite the misgivings of the church. It was amazing to see the
stupidity that believing in a higher being caused the world. Give an arrogant
man power and he will abuse it most readily."
"You
don't believe in God?" Maggie sprouted a tail and set it to wagging.
"You
mean as an interfering busybody bent on having all people bow down and worship
him? No. I believe that there is nothing more to life than this world, and that
behavior like that is more akin to what men want than what I think a higher
being would want. But I think that if there is a God, he would expect us to
take our talents and use them to better this world, not to live long enough to
move on to another. Why then not just create us and place us in heaven? Seems like
a damned inefficient method to me. Maybe, if we have some time later, I'll tell
you about some of my arguments with Rodrigo Borgia."
"Who?'
Maggie
clarified it for me. "Pope Alexander's real name."
"Oh."
The
twins were well aware of whom we were talking with, and to give them equal
time, we shared our rings with them. They found the sudden ability to
understand this ancient man to be beyond their wildest dreams. Then Maggie
slapped herself up the side of her head. She pulled out the remaining two
boxes. Leonardo's eyes lit up.
"I
remember these! It's a wonder they are still around after all this time. How
many do you have?"
"One
that my ring came in, plus three more." Edward told him. " We figured out how
to get two of them open, but not these two."
"I
assume you have a key?"
"Yes,"
Edward said, producing it.
"I
wonder what happened to the other six?"
"There
were ten of these boxes?!"
"Yes,
ten. It was a lot of fun, making each one different." He took the one and
turned it in his hands. "Clavem est in mente tua."
"What
does that mean?"
He took
the box and grasping the base, forcibly turned it against itself. The entire
box clicked, splitting along a plane right below the lid. Eventually it rotated
until the corners matched up again. There was a second click.
"Just
put your mind to it my dear. The person I made this for liked puzzles, and so I
made her box into one. The trick is to hide the obvious from view. The lock
will never open if it's not in the correct position. He put the key into the
lock and the top popped up. Then forward once more and the bottom popped open.
There was no leather envelope inside. The box was empty.
"Sorry
my boy, but this one is gone. I can't say who or where it is. After five
hundred years of deep sleep, there are a great many things I cannot answer. I
will need to update myself to be of any use to you."
Maggie
was still excited. "What of this other box?"
He
smiled. "This one is one of the hardest to open my dear child. It can only be
opened by one of the kind in full were, under the full moon, while wearing one
of the rings. And that full moon must be on or close to the summer solstice."
"Why
did you go to that much bother? For that matter, how did you manage such a
thing. It sounds like magic!"
"That
is a long story, and I would prefer to tell it out in the open. Shall we go for
a walk?"
Edward
was shocked. "WHAT? You think you can just walk around in the sunlight like
nothing has happened? Five hundred years have happened! You can't be seen. It'll
cause a riot!"
Leonardo
would have nothing of it. "This is my home, and while the rest of the world may
have changed, it has not. Look around you. I have faith that my home above
ground will be similarly intact." He went to a ladder, and reaching up, he
played with some strange arrangement of knobs. There was a grinding of gears
and in the next instant a creaking noise. Then it stopped.
"Damn!
Someone has built something over my door!"
Edward
transformed in to his largest form, barely fitting between the roof and floor.
He put a paw against the unyielding device until it gave. Dirt cascaded in from
above, and then daylight. "There!"
The
master bowed to him and climbed up the ladder, making way for the other s to
follow. Maggie, having dressed, went up
first, and Edward transformed back to his human self and donned his clothing.
The twins knew what they had to do and climbed up and quickly became wolves
again, complete with collars.
Leonardo
smiled and took their leashes and walked up to the immense house that was
nearby. Edward dropped the door down, noticing it looked like a stone from this
side, and kicked the dirt from the garden back over it. It left a depression in
the soil, but he hoped no one would notice.
He
jogged to catch up with the rest of them. Maggie was holding the master's right
hand, and with the other he was holding the twins. In his period clothing he
looked right at home here, wherever here was. Edward ran to catch up.
"Whoa! Slow
down! Where are we?"
Leonardo
made a sweeping gesture. "Clos Lucé, my home! Given to me by Frances the First,
the king of France!" The place was huge,
not as large as the chateau, but still remarkably enormous.
"But
after five hundred years, you can't expect it to still be in your name.
Technically you died."
"Son,
you have a few things to learn. First off, times don't change all that much.
Secondly, I gave up the rights to this place a long time ago. But I think I can
guess that I still hold sway here. It is the nature of people to respect their
elders."
He
hardly had those words out when people began to notice his presence. One of the
volunteers on the grounds came over and had a hurried conversation with
him. Edward could only catch one half,
that of Leonardo's portion of it, because while he could understand him as he
spoke, he did not understand the pretty lady he was talking too. The twins
could, but they weren't in the position to talk right now.
Apparently
she thought he was a re-enactor. And his French was sufficient to be
understood. He made a gesture to the
others to follow him. They went in through the main doors of the house and
stopped inside.
"You
see my son. No one asks more than they want to know. She asked if I was
Leonardo, and I told her I was. Apparently I am to give a talk soon." He was
laughing under his breath. "But before that can happen, I need to retrieve
something of importance."
He
walked around the house until he brought them to one designated by the sign as
being his bedroom. He read the French text and smiled. "I guess they still
think a lot of me these days. I find that comforting." He walked over to where a
portrait hung on the wall. He examined it and frowned. "This is not my work!
Why is there a forgery here?"
Maggie
was hanging on his arm. "Because the real Mona Lisa is in the Louvre. It's probably the most famous painting in the
world!"
"Only
the one? That's too bad. I made two paintings of the lady Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo. I
guess I should be flattered, but I think that the original would be more suited
to be here." He took the painting down from the wall, ran his hand over one of
the bricks, and pushed in sharply. The other end popped out, allowing him to
pull it out. Behind it there was a dark recess. He took his ring off and stuck
it in. There was a click. He removed the ring and put the brick back, replacing
the painting to its place on the wall.
"What
was that all about?"
"Nothing
for you to worry about. I just set a few things in motion. Now, I believe I
have some sort of talk to give. Will you excuse me?" And with that, he walked
away.
Maggie
summed up what he was feeling. "What the fuck was that all about? The man was dead to the
world for half a millennia, and suddenly he's back in black like nothing has changed?"
Edward
was still trying to take it all in. "Well, he is Leonardo da Vinci. Who's to
say what is normal for this man? He was one of the most brilliant minds of his
time, and maybe even ever in all of history. Can you imagine what he can do in
today's world?"
"It's
almost scary. Shall we go keep an eye on him? I don't want think I want him
getting too far out of sight." Maggie's voice carried both awe and concern.
As it
turned out, he was outside giving a talk on himself. The workers at the chateau were a little
dismayed that he wasn't following the script, but since his mannerisms and
clothing were impeccable, they let it slide. His French was a little faulty,
and from time to time he would slip in some Italian, but overall it made him
seem more realistic. Seem being the key word. They had no clue he was the real
deal. Even the real actor ended up standing in the audience looking on as someone
else did his job for him. And did it
better!
Edward
was pretty much out of sorts again. It seemed the deeper they went, the more
unrealistic things were becoming. How the hell did this guy, no matter how smart he
was, suddenly just fit in? And the casket. That was beyond belief. Of course,
if it was the only one he ever built, then it made sense that refrigeration
wasn't rediscovered for another few centuries. And it seemed to be powered, or
controlled, or something like that with these infernal rings. But still; how did
he survive? And why bother flash freezing yourself? There were too many damn
questions and not enough answers.