Mystery of the Amber Room

Chapter 6

Purdue woke up in what felt like a freezer, or a coffin made to preserve a corpse. His eyes could not make out anything in front of him. Darkness and silence were akin to the frigid atmosphere that was burning his exposed skin. His left hand reached for his right wrist, but he found that his watch had been removed. Every breath was a rattle of torment as he panted from the cold air coming in from somewhere in the blackness. It was then that Purdue discovered that he was completely nude.

‘Oh my God! Please don’t tell me I am lying on a slab in some morgue. Please don’t tell me that I have been mistaken for dead!’ his inner voice pleaded. ‘Stay calm, David. Just stay calm until you know what is going on. No use panicking prematurely. Panic only clouds the mind. Panic only clouds the mind.'

Carefully he moved his hand down his body and moved them along his sides to feel what was underneath him.

‘Satin.’

‘Could it be a coffin?', he wondered but thought that a coffin would be anything but cold. Sporadic muscle twitches eventually turned into full-fledged cramps, especially in his feet. In pain Purdue wailed into the darkness, clutching his feet. At least this meant that he was not confined to a casket or a morgue fridge. Still, knowing this brought him no solace. The cold was unbearable, even more so than the solid dark around him.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by footsteps approaching.

‘Is this my salvation? Or my doom?’

Purdue listened carefully, fighting the urge to hyperventilate. No voices filled the place, only the incessant footfalls. His heart raced at the myriad of thoughts at what it could be — where he could be. A switch flicked and white light blinded Purdue, stinging his eyes.

“There he is,” he heard a high-pitched male voice that brought to mind Liberace. “My Lord and Savior.”

Purdue could not open his eyes. Even through shut eyelids, the light pierced into his skull.

“Take your time, Her Purdue,” the voice advised in a heavy Berlin accent. “Your eyes must first adjust, or you will go blind, darling. And we don't want that. You are just too precious.”

Uncharacteristic of Dave Purdue, he elected to respond with a well pronounced “Fuck you.”

The man giggled at his profanity, sounding rather amused by it. A clapping of hands cut through Purdue's ears, and he winced.

“Why am I naked? I don’t swing that way, mate,” Purdue managed to say.

“Oh, you will swing any way we push you, my dear. You will see. Resistance is very unhealthy. Cooperation is just as important as oxygen as you will soon realize. I am your host, Klaus, and you are naked for the simple reason that nude men are easy to detect when they escape. There is no need to restrain you when you are naked, you see. I believe in simple but effective methods,” the man explained.

Purdue forced his eyes to adjust to his bright environment. Contrary to every image he had had in his head while lying in the darkness, the chamber where he was held captive was large and luxurious. It reminded him of the décor in the chapel of Glamis Castle in his home country, Scotland. Renaissance-style paintings adorned ceilings and walls, all in colorful oils and gilded framing. Golden chandeliers were hanging from the ceiling and stained glass windows decorated the window panes that peeked through from behind lavish drapery in dark purple.

Last his eyes found the man of whom he had only heard the voice until that moment, and he looked almost exactly as Purdue had pictured him. Not very tall, the slim and elegantly dressed Klaus stood attentively with his hands neatly folded in front of him. Deep dimples formed on his cheeks when he smiled, and his dark beady eyes appeared to glow occasionally under the bright light. Purdue noticed that Klaus wore his hair in a way that reminded him of Hitler's — dark side parting, very short from the top of the ear down. But his face was clean shaven, and there was no trace of the detestable clump of hair under the nose that the demonic Nazi leader had sported.

“When can I get dressed?” Purdue asked, trying to be as polite as possible. “I am really cold.”

“You cannot, I'm afraid. As long as you are here you will be naked for practical as well as,” Klaus' eyes examined Purdue's tall, lean physique with shameless delight, “esthetic purposes.”

“Without clothing, I will freeze to death! This is ludicrous!” Purdue objected.

“Please, control yourself, Herr Purdue,” Klaus replied evenly. “Rules are rules. However, the heating will be turned on as soon as I command so that you will be comfortable. We only chilled the room to wake you.”

“Couldn’t you just wake me the old fashioned way?” Purdue sneered.

“What is the old fashioned way? Calling your name? Pouring water on you? Sending a pet cat to paw your face? Please. This is a temple of unholy gods, my dear man. We are certainly not about kindness and pampering,” Klaus reported in a cold voice that did not fit his smiling face and blazing eyes.

Purdue's legs were shivering, and his nipples hardened from the cold while he stood beside the silk cloth covered table that had served as his bed since he was brought here. His hands covered his manhood, revealing his dropping body temperature by the purple look of his nails and lips.

“Heizung!” Klaus ordered. He took a gentler tone, “Within a few minutes, it will be much more comfortable for you, I promise.”

“Thank you,” Purdue stuttered through clattering teeth.

“You may sit if you wish, but you will not be allowed to leave this room until you are taken out — or carried out — depending on the degree of your cooperation,” Klaus informed him.

“About that,” Purdue said. “Where am I? A temple? And what will you need from me?”

“Slowly!” Klaus exclaimed with a big smile, clapping his palms together. “You just want to get to the details. Relax.”

Purdue felt his frustration mounting. “Listen, Klaus, I am not a bloody tourist! I am not here for a visit, and I am certainly not here to entertain you. I want the details so that we can conclude our unfortunate business and I can go home! You seem to assume that I am fine being here in my goddamn birthday suit jumping through your hoops like a circus animal!”

Klaus' smile disappeared rapidly. After Purdue had finished his rant, the slight man leered at him, unmoving. Purdue hoped that his point got through to the obnoxious idiot who was playing games with him on one of his not-so-good days.

“Are you quite done, David?” Klaus asked in a low, sinister voice that was barely audible. His dark eyes stared straight into Purdue's while he dropped his chin and locked his fingers. “Let me clarify something for you. You are not a guest here, you are right; neither are you a master. Here you do not possess any power because here you are naked, and that means you have no computer access, gadgets or credit cards to perform your magic tricks.”

Klaus slowly approached Purdue while he continued his clarification. “Here you will have no permission to question or have an opinion. You will comply or die, and you will do so without question, am I clear?”

“Crystal clear,” Purdue answered.

“The only reason I am even treating you with a tiny measure of respect is that you have once been Renatus of the Order of the Black Sun,” he told Purdue as he circled him. Klaus displayed a distinct expression of utter contempt for his captive. “Even though you were a bad king, a treacherous turncoat who elected to destroy the Black Sun instead of using them to reign the new Babylon.”

“I never applied for the position!” he defended his case, but Klaus kept on talking as if Purdue’s words were but creaks and squeaks in the wooden panels of the room.

“You had the most powerful beast in the world at your beck and call, Renatus, and you chose to shit on it, sodomize it and almost caused the total collapse of ages of power and wisdom,” Klaus preached. “If that had been your plan from the start I commend you. It shows a talent for deception. But if you did it because you were afraid of the power my friend, you are worthless.”

“Why do you defend the Order of the Black Sun? Are you one of their minions? Did they promise you a place in their throne room once they have destroyed the world? If you trust them you are a fool of special proportions,” Purdue bit back. He felt his skin relax under the soft warmth of the changing room temperature.

Klaus scoffed, smiling bitterly as he stood in front of Purdue.

“I suppose the moniker of fool depends on the object of the game, don't you think? To you, I am a fool to pursue power by any means necessary. To me you are the fool for throwing it away,” he said.

“Look, what do you want?” Purdue seethed.

He walked to the window and pulled the curtain aside. Behind the curtain, set flush into the wooden frame, was a keypad. Before he used it, Klaus looked back at Purdue.

“You have been brought here to be programmed so that you can serve a purpose again,” he revealed. “There is a particular relic we want, David, and you are going to find it for us. And do you want to know the best part?”

Now he smiled as before. Purdue said nothing. He preferred to bide his time and use his observational skills to find a way out as soon as the madman left. For now, he did not want to entertain Klaus anymore, but instead just acted along.

“The best part is that you will want to serve us,” Klaus chuckled.

“What relic is it?” Purdue asked, pretending to be interested in knowing.

“Oh, something truly special, even more special than the Spear of Destiny!” he disclosed. “Once called the Eighth Wonder of the World, my dear David, it was lost during the Second World War by a most baleful force that spread across Eastern Europe like a crimson plague. Due to their interference it is lost to us, and we want it back. We want every surviving part of it reassembled and restored to its former beauty to decorate the main room of this temple in its golden glory.”

Purdue choked. What Klaus insinuated was absurd and impossible, but that was typical for the Black Sun.

“Are you seriously hoping to locate the Amber Room?” Purdue asked, astonished. “It was destroyed by British air raids and never made it out of Königsberg! It does not exist anymore. Only shards of it are scattered all over the ocean floor and under the foundations of old ruins obliterated in 1944. It is fool’s errand!”

“Well, let’s see if we can change your mind about that,” Klaus smiled.

He turned to enter a code on the keypad. A loud hum followed, but Purdue could see nothing out of the ordinary until the exquisite paintings of the ceiling and walls faded into their canvas. Purdue realized that it had all been an optical illusion.

LED screens made up the surfaces inside the frames, capable of changing the scenes like windows to a cyber-universe. Even the windows were just depictions on flat screens. Suddenly, the monitors all displayed the dreaded symbol of the Black Sun before switching to one giant image that spread across all the screens. Nothing was left of the initial room. Purdue was no longer in a lavish castle drawing room. He stood inside a cavern of fire, and although he knew it was merely a projection, he could not deny the discomfort of the rising temperature.