This Magic Moment

by Susan Squires

  Her father hugged her tight again. “Have s-some faith, T-tamsen.” He held her away and achieved that crooked smile that had always shot straight to her heart. “Now c-come j-join us.”

  Tammy sniffed and rubbed her eyes. As much as she loved her father, a chasm had opened up between them, widening with each moment she didn’t tell him that her Destiny was a beautiful man who followed Morgan Le Fay. Maybe she was doomed to betray her family if the draw of the magic between her and this guy was too strong. Or maybe she could resist the pull of Destiny. In either case she was screwed. She’d be half a woman, never loving anyone as much as her father loved her mother or her siblings loved the Ones each had found. She’d be on the outside, looking in. If they survived the comet making a Pentacle in the sky, and whatever the Clan would do with it.

  “I should go down to the barn and look in on Cally and Gwenny.” That was her other refuge. She often spent entire days there.

  “Okay, honey.” He had that tentative feeling he’d had since he’d been attacked with the Wand. She’d reminded him that the pink and purple Tammy was gone. But she couldn’t face the family. Not yet.

  She got up and left him standing there. Lance trotted behind her. She wanted the comfort of her animals around her. Already her heart felt vacant and dusty. There was a member of Morgan’s Clan, power-mad, selfish, bent on wringing personal gain from the world, who thought he belonged inside her heart. And she must never let him in.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‡

  Thomas stood in the huge cement-floored room waiting for Morgan. The rising sun turned the desert sloping away from the entrance to glowing orange and then to gold, and finally to the washed out color of sand and dusty gray-green plants in blinding light. Cars and what Phil called SUVs had been coming in all morning through the two great metal doors. Thomas recognized several of those who were brought back to life. Everyone was still dirty, their clothes torn. They were tired, looking forward to showers, naps and alcohol, or so they said.

  Thomas couldn’t get his mind around this place. It was made of rust-colored metal cut into a canyon in the desert mountains and almost invisible from the outside. He didn’t understand a world with so many women in it, where lighted pyramids crouched right next to medieval castles, where Morgan could bring the dead to life and Phil could push things from across the room. Was this reality or was he dreaming? His books had not prepared him for this.

  But in one way, his books had prepared him, he realized. Buddha performed miracles. So did Jesus. And did not Kant posit that humans were incapable of knowing ultimate reality? Kant also said that humans still had the duty of acting as though the spiritual character of reality was certain. In fact it was a moral imperative to do so. Thus, Thomas reasoned, his problem was that he hadn’t yet accepted an expanded reality. He had to have faith in his purpose, whatever it was.

  Thomas heaved a breath. That was better.

  He waited in the heat that flooded in through the huge door. But his focus on his purpose kept being interrupted as his thoughts strayed to the red-haired girl called Tammy who was his mentor’s enemy. Why couldn’t he stop thinking of her? Why did thoughts of her torment his body so? But if he had learned anything in the monastery, it had been Stoicism. His inner turmoil could and would be suppressed.

  At last, the limousine he had ridden in with Morgan from the airport to the golden pyramid appeared on the road, enveloped in a cloud of ochre dust.

  She was here. Perhaps he would know his purpose soon.

  Rhiannon appeared behind him, with her orange striped cat draped over her arm and cuddled against her chest. It was loose-limbed, its eyes slitted.

  The limo pulled into the huge room with smooth stone floors. The giant metal doors swung silently shut against the desert heat. Morgan, Jason, and a cadaverous figure got out of the car. Morgan carried her intricately carved walking stick that held such incredible energy. Jason took the boxes from the trunk that held the gleaming sword and the jewel-encrusted chalice.

  Morgan alone of all the refugees seemed bursting with energy. She stalked away from the car. She didn’t notice Thomas. “What a dump,” she declared.

  The cadaverous man chuckled. “You’ll still get breakfast in bed.”

  “Will it have caviar for the eggs, Hardwick?” she snapped. “When does the comet come into alignment?”

  “Less than a week.”

  “I want to know precisely and how long the alignment lasts. We have much preparation and not much time.”

  Hardwick nodded. He didn’t seem to say much.

  A young woman entered from a door at the rear of the huge room. A large raven perched on her shoulder immediately flapped to Morgan’s outstretched arm, its long claws clinging to her wrist. “Edgar, my love. How have you been?” The raven cocked his head, eyed her and gave a caw. “I’m glad to see you too,” she cooed. Thomas had never heard that soft tone from her. The raven hopped onto her shoulder and settled in, folding its feathers busily. Morgan glanced around. “Meet me in my quarters at three for planning. And Jason, with the proximity of the Talismans, your power should be growing. Can you Cloak the whole compound?”

  The hard man with the pale blue eyes didn’t look sure. “I’ve never done a Cloak that big. I assume you want us Cloaked until the comet is in place?”

  Morgan nodded, thoughtful. “Holding the Chalice and the Sword should increase your power. Once you’ve established the Cloak, just having them near should allow you to maintain it.” She motioned the men with the Talismans forward.

  “I can’t Cloak people coming in or going out,” Jason warned. “We’ll need supplies.”

  “Anyone watching will just think we’re a mine or a military operation of some kind.” She turned and strode toward Thomas, dismissing Jason.

  Thomas had never felt more at anyone’s mercy, not Brother Theodosius, not even the black man in Somalia who had beat him daily after he was orphaned.

  Morgan peered at him. “Have you eaten?”

  He shook his head. “No, ma’am.”

  Morgan threw up her hands. “Does anyone but me care whether we succeed or not?” She pointed randomly. “You, Duncan. Get him some food.” She moved off, muttering. “Edgar is the only good thing about this God-forsaken hell-hole. A week!”

  Thomas padded after the young man. He was the one who had held the Talisman cases suspended in the air. His shaggy hair wasn’t very clean. The silver rings in his nose, his lip, and his eyebrows were disturbing. But he had a hidden power. What secrets did the others conceal?

  Duncan muttered to himself about baby-sitting as Thomas followed him down metal halls with lights hung in cages on the ceiling. He had no idea why Duncan would want to sit on babies.

  Duncan led him to the kitchen and declared his independence once the people there said they would feed him. The kitchen staff handed Thomas scrambled eggs and a slice of freshly baked bread and he was on his own. He wandered out into an empty hall. Where should he go? Munching on his eggs and bread, he headed down the hall. When corridors crossed, he turned right or left. It didn’t really matter, since he was lost anyway. Then he heard his mentor’s voice.

  “You’re ready, Alexander. You too, Temüjin. It’s time.”

  “The Chinese army needs a strong hand,” a strangely accented voice said.

  “Yes.” Thomas could hear the satisfaction in Morgan’s voice.

  The door was open. It was some kind of a dormitory, like where the monks slept until, through years of service, they earned their own stark cells. Men stood around Morgan, her raven on her shoulder. The men had strong faces, some even hard. They ranged in age from perhaps their thirties to the older man she had just called Temüjin. One was very short. Several appeared to be Mediterranean in origin. Two were Asian, maybe three. Others looked more like Thomas. There were perhaps fifteen in all. The bird on Morgan’s shoulder examined them critically, turning its head this way and that to get a better view with its glittering black eyes.

&nbs
p; “Hardwick will provide everything you need to succeed. I have made you each a cadre of soldiers who are deployed and waiting at your destination. You know your purpose.”

  There were a couple of grim smiles, but most didn’t smile at all. Several jerked their gaze toward him and he realized he had drifted into the doorway.

  “What is it?” Morgan’s head snapped around. The bird on her shoulder gave a raucous caw. When she saw Thomas, she relaxed. “Don’t worry, this is only Thomas. He’s going to make the whole thing possible.”

  They all appraised him openly. How would he make their plans possible? What did he have to give to men such as these?

  “When?”

  “Soon, Alexander. And you needn’t worry that he knows about you. He won’t have time to tell anyone.”

  Good. That meant she would keep Thomas busy. He was used to every moment being taken up with work or study.

  She frowned. “Where is Duncan? Why are you wandering around alone?”

  Thomas had the feeling Duncan needed his help. He couldn’t lie for him. He could, however, speculate. “I think he had other important things to do.”

  Morgan’s frown deepened. Her golden eyes grew hard. “He’ll regret this dereliction of duty.” She gathered herself. “Now, you’ll want to meet these men. They’re quite famous. Do you know your classic history?”

  He nodded. “Up until the nineteenth century, ma’am.”

  Morgan smiled. Thomas couldn’t really like that smile. Maybe because it didn’t come from her heart. Or maybe it did. That was even more frightening. It made her eyes look even more otherworldly. “I didn’t want you too familiar with the modern world. But you’ll know some of these men.” She gathered him into the room. “Alexander III of Macedonia.”

  Thomas nodded to the man wearing jeans and a turtleneck tee shirt. Could this man be Alexander the Great? Thomas sucked in a breath. His stomach quivered. Now that he was closer, he could see that the eyes of the men in the room were missing something. Some spark. Something. They didn’t look quite human. Perhaps this man only thought he was Alexander the Great. But Morgan thought that too…

  “I would have been greater,” the man said. “I had so little time.”

  “Now you have time,” Morgan soothed. “Temüjin.” She pointed. “You know him as Genghis Khan.”

  The older Asian man with the clipped beard had a military bearing, in spite of the fact that he was wearing black cotton pants and soft black slippers. He nodded crisply.

  Thomas frowned. Were these men all equally deluded?

  Morgan continued to point. “Leonidas of Sparta, William Wallace, Scipio Africanus and Hannibal.” These last two glared at each other. “Not still squabbling about that silly battle at Zama, are you? You’re on the same side, now. Remember that.”

  Thomas started to have a very bad feeling about this.

  “And over there is Charlemagne. We’re going to give him a go at uniting Europe again. In a far more direct way than the silly European Union.” She pointed to one of the older men. “And Khourush the Great, here, gets the Middle East, lucky devil.” Thomas dredged up from his memory the fact that Khourush was known in history books as Cyrus the Great, who had created the Persian Empire. “You won’t know Mr. Buonaparte and Mr. Wellington. They’re more recent.” The short man clicked his heels and bowed his head only. The tall, spectral older man merely stared at Thomas over his hooked nose. These two seemed more human.

  Thomas bowed his head in acknowledgement. “I am pleased to meet you all.” How could these men be what they said they were? They’d all be long dead by now.

  Except…he knew for a fact that Morgan could bring people back from the dead.

  Thomas felt the blood drain from his head, making him almost dizzy. She’d brought these men back from the dead? From the long dead, centuries, even in some cases millennia. Why?

  The answer leapt into his mind without his having to reach for it. They were all very famous generals. More than that, they were brilliant military strategists. Thomas’s eyes darted over their faces as Morgan began to speak. The longer they had been dead before she’d revived them, the less connected to their humanity they seemed to be.

  “It’s all arranged. You have jobs waiting for you inside the military. They aren’t the top jobs of course, but I assume you will take care of that shortly. Your support staff is native to the country to which you’ve been assigned, all recently deceased, so they should be fairly current on events and technologies. How do you find modern weaponry?”

  The eyes around the room grew rapacious.

  “I thought you’d like that.” Thomas could see her only in profile, but the avaricious satisfaction in her expression was evident. Even the bird on her shoulder looked smug. “Time to go forth, gentlemen, and do what you do best. By the time you are settled, my own project—,” here she glanced to Thomas, “—will be completed, and our new ascendancy will have begun.”

  Temüjin did not return her smile. Thomas wondered if he knew how to smile, or if that was part of his humanity he’d lost as his bones had turned to dust. Thomas couldn’t help but shudder. “We will not fail in our grand mission,” the Khan said.

  Alexander nodded slowly, his emotionless eyes never leaving Morgan’s face. “The world is ours,” he said. “Which means the world is yours. You have given us the chance to live again.”

  “Yes,” Morgan said. “Mine.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But each of you will rule more people than existed during your time. We will stop all the petty squabbling that prevents the world from moving forward to its true destiny.” She turned her attention to the others. “You will soon follow these men into the outer world. See that you are prepared.”

  The men all nodded. Thomas felt uncertain. She was going to improve the world for mankind. Yet the words “rule” and “weaponry” careened around in his head. That meant wars. They were going to rule many countries? And report to Morgan? That would make her….

  “Thomas.” She motioned to him. “Follow me.” And with that, she turned crisply and strode out into the hall, her bird ruffling its feathers as it shifted to a better grip on her shoulder.

  Thomas trailed behind her, uncertain. His mentor was going to sponsor wars in order to rule large swaths of the world. To make it better, he reminded himself. He had read the military apologists. Who were mainly generals, by the way: Thucydides, Julius Caesar, Khalid ibn al-Walid. But most of his other reading sources abhorred the effect of war. Could such a plan be morally correct, even if the end result was good? He had no idea how he was supposed to contribute to any plan that required military strategists. Yet Morgan had said this was his purpose. It had to be important, else why all those years of work and abstinence and suffering? He’d gone through it willingly, knowing that he had a larger purpose. But, ruling the world? One woman? All history seemed to point to that being a very bad idea, no matter how good her intentions might be. Such power led to excess and cruelty. Witness the Roman Empire, as an example.

  His mentor was wise. She would know how to rule justly. But no one person could really know enough about the world to rule it, could they? So it would be left to the men in that room, who had something human missing…

  “Here we are.”

  Thomas almost ran into her. He had been too preoccupied to realize they were at the end of the hallway. There was nowhere left to go.

  She opened the door onto a luxurious room. It was bigger than his hut on Mt. Athos, filled with light from one of the glowing balls that hung from the ceiling. There was no window, since the compound was built into a canyon. But the room had an actual bed in it, with sheets and a blanket. There was a small chest next to the bed that had several drawers. Another small lamp sat on it. Morgan walked across to another door.

  “This is your room,” she announced. She opened the door. “The toilet.”

  It had its own toilet? Indoors? “Thank you, ma’am. This is most generous.”

  She turned t
o him, surveying his body. “You are very important to me.”

  “Why?” He couldn’t help the need in his voice. “I mean, what use could I be to you?”

  She stepped up to him and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Very useful. Crucial really.”

  “To ruling the world?”

  She peeled his shirt off him and tossed it on the bed. “You will give me something even more important to me. And you will change the world for the better.” She motioned him to take off his t-shirt.

  What he wanted was to press her on what exactly his purpose was. But looking into those golden eyes, he knew she wasn’t the kind to be pushed. And hadn’t Brother Theodosius taught him to value obedience? He squirmed out of his over-shirt. It hurt some, because the scabs on his back cracked. He hastily pulled the t-shirt over his head so it wouldn’t get blood on it. Her gaze roved over his upper body. No one had ever looked at him like that before. Well, two of the monks, but never from this close.

  “I think you’ll be more comfortable naked. That’s what you’re used to, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Since you ordered that I lead a more ascetic life. But I can wear the clothes you so generously gave me if you like.”

  “Not necessary. Take off your boots and the jeans.” She watched every move he made. When he was naked and had folded his clothing neatly on the bed, she moved around him, touching the welts on his back and his buttocks. Thomas was acutely uncomfortable. None of the other men in the compound were naked. But was he a man at all? Or was he simply the creature she had created to fulfill a purpose only she could fathom?

  “Your food will be brought to you here. One of the men will take you to the gym daily. I wouldn’t want you to get out of shape. You will shower there and clean yourself. You’ll follow their directions exactly. Other than that, you will stay here. No more wandering the halls.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” That sounded a lot like his life at the monastery, only with no productive work to fill his hours. “Will you require me to study specific texts?”