God Bless Your Ruin

 The god Apollo asked the prophetess of Cumae, Sibyl.

"Prophetess. This god Apollo will grant you a wish. What do you long for?"

"Give me as many lives as these grains of dust I have seized. I want to live infinitely. It is my wish to obtain eternal life, the immortal life that everyone longs for."

"I will gladly grant that wish."

Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, etc cum illi pueri dicerunt: Sebulla pe theleis: respondebat illa: apothanein thelo.

(I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a cage, and when the boys said to her, "Sibyl, what do you want?" she answered, "I want to die.")

"Sibyl, how did you grow old and shrink so much that you were trapped in a little glass bottle? Are you satisfied to go on living like this? Tell me what you want."

"I want to die. I was stupid.This is the result of having wanted eternal life without eternal youth! As thousands of years passed, my body kept aging, and eventually it became like this. So I want to die like this. I long to find rest in death."

'For Ezra Pound, il miglior fabbro' from T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land.'

His achievements, which were like a turbulent setback , passed like a flash of lightning. The journey he had undertaken so far, wandered aimlessly in misty memories.

John Fitzroy, Duke of Blackwell, sat on the third floor patio, smoking a snuff and sighed softly.

The sky like sea above his head and the sea like sky beyond the window made his wrinkled eyes twitch.

The old man seemed to enjoy the unique South Atlantic weather with a relaxed face. However, the cloudy blue eyes were not necessarily the same.

In the eyes disguised as elegance and gentleness, there was infinite ambition and desire. It was the ugliest, most secret thing in man, like a tiny spark that never went out.

John looked away from the window and turned the chair. Beneath the dark eyebrows, eyes of a darker blue turned inward to the living room.

The clamshell door connecting the terrace where he sat and the inner living room was wide open.

Inside the living room, the nanny was singing a low lullaby, gently shaking his grandchildren's cribs.

"Baby."

He called to them from afar. It was a whisper as small as a rattlesnake, so the nanny couldn't hear it.

"I'm alive now."

It was a voice with a faint sigh, like a cheek sunken by senility.

"I have everything, wealth and power such as not to envy that of a king of a country...It won't be long before I leave all these things behind and go. I have everything like this."

His wrinkled eyes turned to the natural beauty beyond the window. He owned the island, surrounded by beech forests, fertile land and blue seas. With less than 200 households and workers, it was owned by Lord Blackwell.

Before and after the end of the war, between wars, colonies on the old and new continent, mining. The great fortunes he had amassed in military affairs enabled him to do anything. He had the power to conceal anything beyond the full veil if he set his mind to it.

John Fitzroy Blackwell was the natural owner of money. Businesses with astronomical amounts of money, especially illegal ones, were busy laying golden eggs that played.

"I have everything."

John's lips twitched again. It was like the sound of a music box repeating forever. He had a feeling of his coming death. Just because he had lived long enough didn't mean he had no regrets.

"There is no eternal life. Ha ha...it's so painful. No matter how much I have, in the end I am the same in the face of death. Maybe I too am a weak human being in the face of Mother Nature's providence."

There was a cry in the old man's heart.

Something came up. As much as he perceived it with his head, his instinct also wanted to go against the laws of nature.

"Baby."

He looked back at his grandchildren, a pair of lives, born to his son Edward, slept soundlessly soundlessly. Nanny patted the crib.

"It's unfair that it's like this, don't you think? So...I decided."

The dark eyebrows that had faded to white twitched.

"I'm going to try to defy God."

The blue sky was beginning to cloud over.

The South Atlantic gulls were busy fleeing the dark clouds that were approaching, pecking and squawking.

In the distance, an ominous hum of rumbles, explosions and thunderstorms was sweeping across the island.

"It's too late for this grandfather now, unfortunately. Still...my descendants through whom my blood flows.... I'm going to do it for you and the perpetuity of this family."

He found his cane, grabbed it and rose from the patio chair. The steps to the basement were heavy, carrying the body, which he found increasingly difficult to move.

Built like a castle fortress, the mansion had more than a dozen secret passages. Among them, the Duke moved to a place he had not been in a long time.

The floor, where not a single ray of light entered, was as cold as in the dead of winter.

Still, with every step he took, sweat trickled down Sir Blackwell's forehead.

He was never nervous in the face of Trieste, of course, Wintergarh, Vicentin, the King of the Highlands and even the infamous pirates of Azerbaijan. Those were decades in which he lived without knowing what fear was.

Now, leaving those glorious and evil times behind, John Fitzroy Blackwell gave himself over to the thrill of fear.

With each step, he approached the taboo of the world. And finally, the long-sealed door creaked open with a screech and a cry of purgatory.

Edward, and his descendants. I will make his kingdom eternal with these hands.

...

18 years later.

Bushy beeches that formed their own hedges and purple vines mingled with the flowers of the Atlantic climate to create a natural garden.

Garden of the Gods, that's what everyone called this place.

Angie lifted the eaves of her white hat wrapped in ribbons a little. As she watched the sunlight gradually soften, it seemed that autumn had come to an end.

The top of Blackwell Hill.

The Duke's estate, also called 'Blackwell Hill', was very large and spacious. Even after passing through the large gate, you had to walk a long way to the main mansion, but it wasn't boring.

Just like its nickname, Garden of the Gods.While. She looked at the plants and flowers glowing in the sunlight, she realized that she had reached the interior of the beech forest. A huge gothic mansion spoke over it.

"Huuuuh... I'm here already."

Angie looked down at her body. It was only rippling slightly in the breeze. There was no mess on her clothes. It was the same neatness it had been since the moment she left the house.

Angie walked across the tiled floor and stopped in front of the large entry foyer. Then she lifted the heavy doorknob and managed to knock twice. Her hair, in two braids, swayed in the wind.

The door opened.

Angie was greeted by a woman with a face as hard as the door, with a smile on her face, she introduced herself as butler Louis Dunst.

"Hello, Mrs. Dunst. My name is Angie Lizdel."

"Yes, nice to meet you. The master is waiting."

Mrs. Dunst took the initiative and climbed the stairs to the third floor.

It was her first time entering the Blackwell family's main residence. The interior of the mansion showed the scale and majesty of the mansion, as she had heard before.

In every nook and cranny, there was an understated elegance, and an ancient and elegant reverence like a funeral parlor flowed through the air.

The two reached the stairwell after a long time passing the hall decorated with flowers and exotic crafts everywhere.

The red carpet hanging at the top of the stairs was woven with elaborate patterns that looked like exotic paintings and hieroglyphics.

It was so thick and soft that even Angie herself couldn't even hear the sound of it going up the stairs.

When she reached the second floor, she tilted her head back and looked up at the ceiling that stretched to the third floor and the chandelier that hung high above. She wondered what kind of mysterious light it would disperse in the night.

Mrs. Dunst didn't pause for a moment and kept going.

Angie came to her senses and followed. The two finally set foot on the first staircase leading to the third floor. At that moment, Angie stopped walking again. A lavish portrait hung on the wall.

The faces in each painting were slightly similar, as if they were different. It was clearly a member of the Blackwell family, or more precisely, a direct blood relative of the master's grandfather, the elder John Fitzroy Blackwell.

Next to John Fitzroy Blackwell hung a portrait of a young man who was supposed to be Henry David Blackwell, the eldest son, who had contracted an illness 17 years ago, and Edward Liam Blackwell, who was also recovering from an illness at his mansion. There were other paintings of various knights, ladies and young women. And there was also a very pretty boy in the middle of the stairs.

That's the young master.

Angie knew instinctively. In the portrait, the boy had dark hair and crystal blue eyes. He's in his mid teens now, so it must have been a long time ago.

He had a lovely, beautiful face like a doll's, but somehow it was strange. There was something creepy about it that wasn't like a child.

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N/T: The beginning might have been confusing, but it is a scene between the god Apollo and a prophetess, Sibyl of Cumae, both belonging to Greek mythology. Also, the author placed a reference to this scene, which belongs to the poem "The Waste Land", by T.S. Eliot.