What had he to show for fifty years on Earth?Ī palace by the Caspian Sea? An opera house to rival any made before or after it? A hundred other houses, not quite as grand, but never truly ordinary?Ī thousand trinkets of outstanding ingenuity, and hundreds of thousands of notes that no one would ever hear. He drained his glass too quickly, in the hope that the alcohol would either lighten or deepen his depression. If not a celebration than at least an acknowledgment of fifty-or fifty-three-or forty-seven-years quite badly lived. He refreshed his wine glass and lifted it in idle salute as the chimes rang twelve times in slow succession. As well as the name 'Erik' had, at least. Still, it was a date that served him well enough. By his calculations, he could have been incorrect by as many as three years in either direction. Even the year he had chosen was questionable. A found date, to complement a happenstance name. When the hour struck, it would be his birthday-his fiftieth. He sat, alone save a bottle of fine Shirazi wine, watching the clock on his mantle move forward to midnight. How many times had he cheated death? And how many times had madness touched him? Too many times to count, too many times to doubt.īoth continuing life and a faint echo of madness were with him at this moment, there again reminding him that, surely, heaven hated him. It had been made abundantly clear to him throughout his life, by various means and circumstances.
Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.Įrik had never questioned which category he belonged to.
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