“I’ll be on the next flight. We should meet in person.”
“Agreed. Just tell me one thing, sir. When was the last time you saw Melodia?”
“1376.”
“And her real name?”
“Catharine de Goth.”
“I see. Simon’s mother. A Merovingian. A Cathar?”
“Du Morte, that is more than one thing. I will see you in person!”
(((((((((((((
Aristoni walked slowly around the circular room in the depths of Wewelsburg Castle. The twelve stone plinths along the wall were now lighted with the soft glow of lamps cleverly hidden in the stonework. All of them were devoid of decoration like pedestals awaiting the arrival of some precious work of art. Ancient vases perhaps, or statuary. He turned and looked down into the depression in the center of the room. There was still time. John Andrews. John Andrews. He had been so close. Mark Andrew Ramsay! The venerable Knight of Death. He had escaped his fate and now he waited. If Mark Ramsay had not tried to kill him, then there was a chance that he had reached him on some basic level. That would mean one of two things would happen now. Either Mark Ramsay would join him or he would be back to kill him. What bothered him most was that his sister had given the blood of the sacrament to the Italian. What had possessed her? But possessed was most likely the correct term.
Never had he known of Melodia falling into bed with anyone. In all these years, she had been the perfect picture of virtue with only the slightest suspicion from time to time, but never anything so blatant as this. And then, out of the blue, she had taken this one to her bed and not only to her bed, but she had given him the sacrament and Aristoni had no doubt that Lucio Dambretti, AKA Guiseppi Apolonio, had no idea what he had done or the implications involved.
Why had she done it? Why had the Italian Knight done it? Were the Templars accustomed to drinking blood? Not likely! Aristoni had to assume that Dambretti had thought it a joke or a game. Certainly, a poor Knight of Christ would not have so easily succumbed to blood drinking. Unless the Italian was more intelligent than he looked and knew something he was not supposed to know… but regardless of his approach, Melodia refused to discuss the incident with him. He turned about and looked up at the vaulted chamber over his head.
They had been so very, very close here. Close, but not close enough. He remembered well his horror at hearing what Heinrich Himmler had been doing. He’d had no idea that the man would so pervert the teachings and knowledge that he had been entrusted with. There had been rumors, but there had always been rumors. Himmler had been on the right track, but he had lost it when he’d done away with Otto Rahn. Now, Otto…. Otto had been a real gem. He had been on the verge of a breakthrough, but the idea of Universal Love had not set well with Himmler’s ideal of the perfect society. Himmler’s views had been too closely tied with the Fuhrer’s ideals of what the Master Race had been all about. Aristoni had never feared Hitler. He had been a pathetic little man. The only thing that had baffled him about Hitler had been his control of the masses, but the powers of darkness were always looking for Hitlers. If Himmler had listened to Otto, there might have been a vastly different world outside the walls of Wewelsburg at that moment.
He spun about as someone entered the chamber.
“Melodia!” He smiled at his sister.
“Ari.” She nodded to him and looked around the chamber. “Do you think he will come?”
“Of course.” He shrugged.
“To kill us?”
“I don’t think so,” he said with more confidence than he felt. “I put the seed in his mind. There is much more to Mark Ramsay than meets the eye. In fact, both he and his son are hiding a great deal and hiding it very well. I only wish that you had used your charms on one of them rather than the Italian.”
“You are walking on Holy Ground, brother. I suggest you back off.” She pursed her lips and clasped her hands behind her back as she walked slowly around the room. “It will be glorious, will it not?”
“Glorious is not an adequate term, sister.” Aristoni jumped down into the depression. He held out both arms and turned in a circle like a young child. “I am greatly indebted to those who built this for us.”
“They did quite well, did they not?” she mused and ran one hand over the smooth surface of one of the low pedestals.
“Yes, but they cut their noses off in spite of their faces.” He laughed and his voice echoed eerily in the chamber.
“Then we must make sure that we do not do the same.” She raised up and turned her crystal eyes on him.
(((((((((((((
The memorial ceremony for Guy de Lyons, Knight of the Sword, poor Knight of Solomon’s Temple was over. The Knight was laid to rest in the crypts below the chapel. He had stopped breathing two hours before Edgard d’Brouchart had left Italy for Scotland. With Omar’s influence, they had been able to arrange passage of the body, along with Lavon de Bleu and Little Barry d’Ornan. Everyone had left the chapel except Simon, d’Brouchart and Mark Andrew. Konrad had wanted to stay, but Mark had sent him back to the house with Luke Andrew.
The three men stood in the bell tower, looking out the windows at the tops of the great oaks.
“Have you told Simon about his mother?” Mark Andrew asked without preamble.
Simon coughed and then spun about. He had not expected this to be the topic of conversation.
“I have not,” d’Brouchart continued to gaze out the southern window.
“Don’t you think you should?” the Knight of Death’s voice carried no malice. He leaned against the wall of the tower with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Father?” Simon’s eyes widened.
Edgard turned and shook his head slightly.
“I had intended to tell him… one day.”
“This is one day,” Mark urged him.
“Before we get into that, did Luke Andrew learn anything in his inquiries into Guy’s malady?”
“Nothing concrete. He has some ideas.”
“Tell him to keep working on it.”
“Father!” Simon was frowning now. “What about my mother? My mother died. You told me that she died.”
“She did.” D’Brouchart frowned slightly and jerked his head. “But…”
“But what?” Simon looked at Mark Andrew and then at his father. “Sir Philip told me that she died. He was there. What happened?”
“She died, but only for a little while.”
Simon crossed the small space and grabbed his father’s arms. He looked into his father’s light blue eyes. “What do you mean?” The priest let go of his father and spun on Mark Andrew. “What does he mean? Was my mother one of the immortals?” he reverted to French.
“Your mother is alive, Simon,” Mark Andrew told him. “She is alive and well and living in Germany.”
Simon swayed slightly and then sank to the rough floor of the platform. Mark Andrew caught his arm and helped him up again.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” his voice was barely a whisper.
“I have been searching for her for a very long time,” Edgard told his son. “I have sent du Morte on several missions to locate her, but always they have been dead ends… pardon the word.” The Grand Master cringed. “I’m sorry! What else can I say? We did not part on good terms.” The big man spun on Ramsay. “What is the point of this?! Why must you make him suffer?”
“I am not causing his suffering, Your Grace.” Mark raised both eyebrows. “If my own mother were still alive, I would want to know.”
“You have no mother. You never had a mother!” Edgard scowled at him. “You are an abomination.”
Mark was on him in a split second. His hands were entwined in the Master’s surcoat and his face was bare inches from the big man’s face.
“I am an abomination? What about you?! How did you come to be in this form, Edgard? But we are not here to discuss our little faults, Edgard. I want to know what is going on here. I want Simon to know. He de
serves to know! I want to know what his mother did to Lucio! I want to know what it means,” Mark was speaking the language of the elves. D’Brouchart understood every word. Simon did not.
Mark Andrew let go of him and resumed his place on the far wall.
“Father.” Simon raised his head and looked at the ceiling, the damage had been repaired there, but the new paint was a fresh reminder of what had happened here not so very long ago and brought more pain at the memory of what had become of Meredith.
“Your mother was… is a Cathar. In fact, her name is Catharine de Goth. Her brother was Eduord de Goth. I went to the Languedoc in 1244 to try to warn them that the King and the Holy See were about to launch a crusade against them.” Edgard slumped against the window sill. “I was in love with her and I had promised to leave the Order and stay with her. To marry her. Yes!” He nodded as Simon’s mouth fell open in disbelief. “She would not listen. She thought I was merely making it all up in order to break my promise to her. I don’t know how she could have thought such a thing. It was the way of things then. A man joined the Order and it became his life. She knew this. But it was not so. I was ready to leave the Order. I was tired of the politics. Things were not going well. At any rate, she threw herself over the parapet, but she did not die immediately. God! If only she had died… no!! No! I don’t mean that! At any rate, I used the Tree of Life to save her.”
“Mother of God.” Simon was crying now. “Why?”
“I loved her. I wanted to keep her… forever,” Edgard told him and then cast a dark look at Mark Andrew.
“Go on,” Mark Andrew prompted him. “What happened then?”
“Wait! You couldn’t have used the Tree of Life on her! What about the Council?” Simon asked him. “The covenant was made for only twelve.
“There were never twelve members, my son, who needed the Tree to Survive. You are looking at two of them right here.” Edgard told him levelly. “And if you had a mirror, you would be looking at a third.”
“What are you saying?” Simon looked down at himself. “You gave me the Tree of Life. You told me that it was what had saved me. That I was dying…”
“I told you that so you would accept your immortality. You were born immortal. You were not dying, but you were fading away… just as the elves do. Just as the immortals do by choice, but you didn’t know. You would have been lost. You are a Halfling just as Luke Andrew. Just like Oriel and Konrad.”
“My mother?”
“No.” Edgard shook his head.
“You?” Simon jerked his head about to look at Mark Andrew and the Knight of Death nodded to him and then shrugged. “I don’t understand!”
“You are truly Menalik,” Mark Andrew said quietly. “The son of Solomon the Wise. Am I right?” He looked at Edgard.
“I have been called many things, my son. Solomon, Suleymon the Great. Naboplasser.”
“Naboplasser? The father of Nebucchadnezzar?” Simon leaned against the railing of the stairs. “But what about Lucio? I thought he was supposed to be some reincarnation or something of Nebucchadnezzar. Sister Meredith…”
“He is a descendent of Naboplasser,” d’Brouchart explained. “He has always been special to me though he never would have believed it. He is very much like the good King Nebucchadnezzar. Arrogant. Stubborn. Selfish. A real jewel.”
It was Mark’s turn to be surprised. Naboplasser! He would have never guessed it! But then he should have… Naboplasser. Nebucchadnezzar. Nab. Both had been named after Nebo.
“But what about the brother? Aristoni? Eduord?” Mark asked him.
“She would have nothing to do with me when she learned what I had done. I suppose it was the shock,” d’Brouchart continued. “I had to tell him what I had tried to tell her. I had to take him into my confidence. He promised to take her to a safe place and look after her for me. He swore to keep the secret on one condition.”
“Ahhh. The Tree of Life. You had to give it to him as well. I see.” Mark Andrew shook his head. “Wattaver ’appened t’ brotherly love?”
“You say my mother is in Germany?” Simon seemed to get a second wind. A smile broke over his face. “Where? I have to see her! Where is she?” He looked from one of them to the other.
“You explain it to him, Sir.” Mark Andrew headed for the stairs. “Konrad and I have a plane to catch. I will expect my answers when I return.”
(((((((((((((
Luke Andrew was waiting for his father on the steps of the big house, holding a crumpled piece of yellow paper in his hand.
“What?” Mark Andrew drew up short at the sight of his son’s expression.
“Manchester, New York?” Luke raised both eyebrows. “You are going to New York?”
“I don’t have time for this, son.”
Mark brushed past him into the house.
Luke followed after him.
“I have been working on this thing night and day!” Luke whined as he followed him. “And now you are going off with Konrad von Hetz?! Why? Why are you leaving me here?”
“It would be better for you to stay here. There’s Vanni to worry with and Simeon and…”
“And just how did the Emerald Tablets get to be in Manchester, New York?” Luke asked him and Mark Andrew froze. “And how does Konrad von Hetz know this? And what does Merovingian blood have to do with Guy de Lyons' death? And exactly what did Barry of Sussex do when he was a member of the SS in Himmler’s service?”
Mark Andrew turned on the stairs to look down at his son.
“You have been very busy.” The Knight nodded his head slowly.
“Day and night.” Luke Andrew smiled up at him.
“Upstairs!” Mark Andrew looked about the deserted foyer in alarm and then hurried up the stairs with Luke close behind him.
Guillaume Pairaud, the French chef, backed into the shadows of the hallway and stood perfectly still as the two men hurried up the stairs. Merovingian blood and Guy de Lyons? Barry of Sussex, a Nazi? He stuffed his hands in his pockets and headed back to the kitchen.
Konrad was in the shower when the father and son entered his room.
“Konrad!” Mark Andrew beat on the bathroom door. “Get yurself out ’ere!”
The Knight of Death turned on his son.
“Now tell me, Luke! Did Konrad tell you about this?” Mark Andrew was livid.
Luke held up the tattered letter from Konrad.
“Ye shud be more moindful o’ yur pockets, father.” Luke smiled at him.
“Dammit, Luke!” Mark snatched the paper from him and rubbed it between his fingers until it was shredded completely. “Ye wair s’posed t’ be studyin’ up on de Lyons, not rummagin’ through me laundry!”
“I know it’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it,” Luke told him.
Konrad emerged from the bathroom, rubbing his long, dark hair with a towel. His face looked drawn and tired.
“What’s all the noise?” The Knight of the Apocalypse frowned at them. He wore only a pair of dark trousers and no shoes. He had a black dragon tattooed on his chest.
“Hey! Nice dragon.” Luke grinned at him and Konrad covered it with his towel.
Mark Andrew dropped onto the bed.
“He knows about the blood and the castle,” Mark told Konrad simply. “Ye moight as well tell ’im th’ rest.”
Konrad frowned and then pulled a tee shirt from his leather bag. He slipped on the shirt and then pulled a bottle of whiskey from the same bag. He unscrewed the cap and took a swallow of it. It was obvious that the dark Knight had been drinking quite heavily of late.
The Knight of the Apocalypse who sees had been to Switzerland ‘seeing’ to his father’s chalet in the Alps. He’d not been there in years and years. It had been very difficult for him, going through his father’s personal belongings. Asher Schumacher had joined him there and helped him with the tedious task of sorting through the former Knight of the Apocalypse’ personal belongings, deciding what to keep and what to throw out. I
t had turned out that his father had very little that was not relevant or valuable. The only things that they had discarded had been several boxes of old clothes, boots and coats, leaving the chalet very much as they had found it. But Konrad von Hetz, the elder, had collected more than old boots and jackets.
He had amassed a great deal of information on computer disks. All neatly labeled and stored in a fireproof safe. His father had kept meticulous records of his researches. Konrad, the younger, had nearly blinded himself trying to read through it all. When he had learned of Mark Andrew’s trip to Romania, more precisely Budapest, he had naturally looked through the files marked Budapest in his father’s computer library. There, he had found an amazing collection of archives concerning the activities of the Order of Teutonic Knights, particularly fascinating were references to ‘vampires’ and ‘blood drinkers’ associated with the Order, linking them to the heretical Cathars of southern France. He had gone further and further in the old documents and found several more references to missions on which the Knight of Death had been sent by the Grand Master in search of an elusive ‘vampire’ named Aristoni.
The Grand Master had apparently been seeking this enigmatic creature for several centuries off and on as time and circumstances allowed. Konrad had used his talents to see into the minds of Guy de Lyons and Lavon de Bleu and learned that Ramsay in the company of his son, Luke and Lucio Dambretti had been sent to Budapest once again on a seek and destroy mission and, again, the Merovingians and Teutonic Knights had been mentioned. One thing had led to another and Konrad had looked in on Dambretti while he was in Budapest. He had caught him when he was reciting the words of Thoth to Mark Andrew. He had been greatly disturbed by all of this and had delved deeper into his father’s records. Soon, he had learned that certain Templar treasures that had been carried to the Languedoc and deposited with the Cathars had been taken from the Rennes-le-Chateau to Scotland and thence from Scotland to the American wilderness. These particular treasures had supposedly been buried and left there by one John Larmenius, poor Knight of the Temple of Solomon. This bit of news had prompted him to write the letter that now lay in a pile of yellow fluff on the rug at his feet.
Thoth, the Atlantean Page 9