Thoth, the Atlantean

by Brendan Carroll

  “Yes! No.” Mark Andrew was taken aback by the presence of the Italian. “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, no? What?” He looked panicked.

  “We will find him in the morning. I’ll look in the dish,” Mark Andrew told him as they started back through the trees. “Did you see any… lights in the forest?” he asked after a few moments.

  “No. Just moonlight.” The Italian looked about under the trees with a worried frown.

  “Ahh. Well, don’t worry, we’ll find him.” Mark Andrew brushed the leaves from his face and his hair and followed reluctantly after the Knight of the Golden Eagle as he continued to call for his son.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  “What is this you have learned?” Melodia threw the letter down in front of her brother. “Who is this man, Levi d’Ornan? He is a priest? A Catholic?”

  “He is very important to us, sister.” Aristoni plucked the letter from the floor and resumed his seat.

  “Did you rouse me out of bed just to insult me with the rantings of a fool? A Papist fool at that?” She pulled her robe more closely about her. The bedroom was quite drafty. The evening and afternoon before had been unusually warm, but a cold wind had blown in from the mountains since then.

  “He is no fool. He is Merovingian.”

  Aristoni picked up his glass of brandy and sipped it casually, bemused that his sister still felt such wrath against the church and what had befallen them so long ago. Things had changed and then changed again and again. The church was not nearly the force that it had once been. People came and went now as they pleased in the western world. All manner of false religions had sprung up and the Popes had become weaker and weaker, accepting one false doctrine after another in a failed attempt to unite the world in peace and tolerance. Numerous attempts at compromise and integration. Water it down, soup it up, dilute it, concentrate it. No matter what the Church in Rome did with its doctrine, it was still so far removed from the original teachings of St. Peter, it mattered very little. But Tolerance, something he had thought he would have never lived to see, the Pope consulting with Buddhists and Baptists and Hindus and Shamanists. Embracing and celebrating homosexuals, transvestites, criminals, and all manner of personal beliefs. Incredible. Personal beliefs that would have resulted in slow, painful deaths a few short centuries ago.

  And then, the final collapse. The church, the Holy See, combining itself inextricably with the ranks of the New Order of the Temple! Hobnobbing with Muslims and Confuscianists. Proclaiming Jesus Christ to be just one of many messiahs, equal to Mohammed and Krishna. It was unbelievable, but there it was. The Church had never recovered from the crippling effects of the mass condemnation of the priesthood in the early years of the twenty-first century. They had been exposed as a band of child molesting homosexuals. Something that even the Pope could not condone in full. Homosexuality… maybe. Child molestation? Not quite right, even in this age.

  A crushing blow to the Church and long overdue in his opinion. It seemed equally incredible to him that it had taken two thousand years for the world to admit that the Holy Roman Church might not have been so holy after all. He had no doubt that there were some pious men among them, but they were far and few between and by the turn of the second millennia, virtually non-existent, embracing all manner of sinner in the sanctuaries and monasteries in the name of Universal Love. What did they know of Universal Love? They had lost sight of the teachings of Christ long ago. They had crucified Him and then burned His children after Him, the Perfecti, the Gnostics, the Orthodox, the followers of John and James, all the while professing to follow His example. And now they had taken a Merovingian into their ranks. The same old story! The proverbial viper in the bosom. But ‘little Levi’ did not know what he was, or did he? It had taken very little time to find him once he had known where to look and on looking further, he had found that there were ten more d’Ornan brothers. Even further that their father was still alive somewhere, possibly in France or Italy.

  Levi’s father had been a priest. He had learned this much as well and they were all connected to the Isle of Ramsay and St. Patrick’s Island, Mark Andrew Ramsay’s holdings in the Irish Sea. Mark Andrew Ramsay, immortal Knight of Death, poor Knight of Christ.

  The picture just kept becoming clearer and clearer. Ramsay had been searching for him for years at the behest of his Master, Edgard d’Brouchart. And here he finally had a connection between Mark Ramsay and the Merovingian bloodline. The clever Knight knew much more than he had first imagined. It was no wonder he had left him without saying goodbye and gone back the way he had come. If Mark Ramsay had knowledge of the Divine Right of the Merovingians, then he most likely knew exactly the ultimate goal of the Order of Jerusalem. Not only would he know what they were looking for, but where it might be found. Aristoni had heard many rumors about the treasures of the Templars and the connections with the Scots. He had studied the conjectures of writers throughout the centuries about where these ancient relics and artifacts might have been taken and hidden and he had even made several trips to Scotland, America, Nova Scotia and Ethiopia making his own inquiries. But he had gotten nowhere. He really had no interest in the Ark of the Covenant or the Cross of Christ. Nor did he yearn to possess the Cup of the First Communion. He was searching for the Crystal Skulls of the Ancient Gods. The Elder Gods who had walked the earth before the One God had divided the darkness from the light and he’d had suspicions that, if anyone knew where they might be hidden, it would be the poor Knights of Christ. But never had he heard a hint of the Crystal Skulls. Never until he had looked in on Omar Kadif’s activities in New Babylon and Luke Andrew Ramsay’s activities in America when they had been rulers of the world. And then he had seen the mind of Jasmine Ramsay!

  There the connection had died. Something had happened. At one time, both of these men had possessed a skull. Two of them! And then nothing!

  During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries he had spent an enormous amount of money and time collecting skulls from around the world. He had even bought an entire collection from a private party in London, but none of them had been genuine. Some were very anomalous, but none possessed the power he sought. That had been the closest he had come to possessing any of them. He knew that he had been close because his precious collection had been intercepted in route to Budapest, ransacked and depleted. When the shipment had arrived, two skulls had been missing. No amount of official or unofficial investigation could turn up a single clue as to how, what, when, where or who had robbed him of the treasure, but he thought he knew. Only Mark Ramsay could have engineered and accomplished such a feat. His security had been the best money could buy. Everything had been planned in secrecy and with the same care the transport of nuclear weapons might have commanded, but it had not been enough. Two of the security guards escorting the crates had disappeared off the face of the earth along with two of the artifacts. Lords of London had been appalled. The Grand Master of the Teutonic Order had been outraged. Aristoni recognized the skill of the precision strike initiated by d'Brouchart's infamous Assassin.

  When he had discovered the skulls in possession of the Prophet and his assistant, he had been elated, but the hopelessness of the situation had become even more hopeless when he had learned the true identity and origins of Omar Kadif and Luke Ramsay. Their connections with Mark Ramsay had sickened him and angered him. How he could have been so blind, he had no idea. He should have known that the entire New Order of the Temple was simply another attempt at world domination by the Order of the Red Cross. The Order of the Temple. New Order of the Temple. How naïve he had been! When he had discovered who his mysterious guests were at the Sign of the Dragon, he had wanted so much to ask Luke Ramsay directly about the skull, but it had been too dangerous and he had no doubt that the son of Mark Ramsay would have been just a bit reticent to speak of it with him.

  “So what does this mean?” Melodia interrupted his thoughts.

  “It means that the bloody cloth that I had assumed
belonged to a dead brother of ours may belong to a live Templar.”

  “What do you mean a live Templar?” She frowned at him. “Are you going to start with that again? Edgard betrayed us! He betrayed me. And he betrayed our people! They are still faithful to the very Church that killed them.”

  “There are many things you do not know!”

  “I only know that I fell twice for Edgard d’Brouchart. Once from foolishness and once from the parapet! I will not help you if you continue in this vein. We do not need them. If one of our brothers or a hundred of our brothers have become Templars or Catholic Priests, then they are no longer our brothers.”

  “As I said, sister, there are many things you do not know.” Aristoni smiled at her. “You are right. You should not have returned to him even in the face of death. Why you persisted on marrying that lout of a man is beyond me. What did you hope to accomplish? You wished to make Edgard jealous? To cause him pain? Is that it? It is a wonder you were not found out and burned at the stake! I am surprised that d’Brouchart offered you sanctuary after the pain you caused him. He was not what you thought at all. He truly loved you. So much so that he broke his covenant with God to be with you, to save you. And not only did he bestow immortality upon you, he gave me the gift as well in order that I could look after you. What more proof of his love could you have asked? What greater folly could any man have suffered for the price of love? If he had simply given up his mantle and married you, he would have been killed along with the rest of them and us as well. He tried to save you!”

  “You are wrong!” she shouted at him and stood up. “Get out of my room! I won’t listen to this!”

  “You were never reasonable, Catharine.” He stood slowly. “If it had not been for your hatred of him, I might have become one of his immortal Knights and things could have been very different for us now.”

  “He let me die. He let our child die! He could have saved our son just as he saved me. He didn’t want the baby. He didn’t want ties with me! How could a man let his own son die if he knows the meaning of love?!” she shouted at him and pushed the table over between them.

  “You didn’t die, Catharine! Not really,” Aristoni laughed. “You are being absurd.”

  “He could have called his Healer to heal me. He could have saved our son. They told me that he took the boy away and buried him. That the child was evil! I remember quite well!”

  “Who told you that?” Aristoni frowned at his sister.

  He had never heard this. She rarely, if ever, spoke of that time. Edgard had summoned him from London to Paris and then sent him to the monastery for her. He had never seen or spoke to d’Brouchart again. Shortly afterwards, he had found himself a target on the Templar Assassin’s hit list and he had been running ever since. Whatever had happened between Edgard and his sister had been kept from him until this moment. She had simply told him that she had born a son that was dead at birth, that the baby’s father had not been her scurrilous husband’s child, but none other than her former lover, Edgard d’Brouchart.

  They had escaped from France with not only her husband after them, but Edgard’s Knight of Death as well. So she believed that Edgard had killed their son. No wonder she hated him so.

  “Philip Cambrique! That’s who. Edgard’s second. He was there when the babe was born. I remember him. He was faint from terror. I never saw Edgard again. He used me shamelessly and then abandoned me! He was no better than the fool I married.”

  “Philip Cambrique would do or say anything that his Master required up to and including immolating himself in the town square. Did it ever occur to you that the man might have been lying? You did die in childbirth, am I correct? Did you ever see the child?” He held out his hands in a conciliatory manner as she made a move to throw the chair at him.

  “No! And that is all the worse sin. I never even laid eyes on him!” She pressed her hands to her face and he wrapped his arms around her before she could attempt to throw anymore furniture.

  “It’s all right, Catharine.” He patted her shoulder and she cried into his shirt. “You should have told me this long, long ago. I could have put your mind at ease, perhaps. Would you like to see your son?”

  Catharine jerked away from him and began to beat on him. He caught her wrists and held her in place.

  “Why are you doing this to me?!” she screamed in his face.

  “I am trying to help you. To help us!” he told her. “We have come to the end of the journey, Melodia. Catharine! Please listen to me. We have run out of places to go. If Mark Ramsay decides to come after us again, he will not be seen. He will not be heard. He came to learn and he learned. Now he is thinking. He will either come back and finish the job for Edgard or he will join with us. If we can strengthen our bonds with him through his Brothers, then our chances of success here will be doubled. Tripled! And I believe that Mark Ramsay might very well have possession of what we need to set things right. He and his son and his grandson may have direct access to not just one or two of the skulls, but all of them.”

  “But what has this to do with my son? He’s dead!” she sobbed.

  “He is not dead! Don’t you see? Look at the letter, Catharine. It was very hard to come by such a thing. No one writes letters anymore. It is probably why Levi d’Ornan wrote it. He does not trust the electronic mail! Look! Look at what it says.”

  He shoved the letter in her hands and she sat down in the chair while he righted the table. He found another glass and a bottle of brandy. She held the letter in trembling hands while he lit a candle to provide more light for her to read by and poured her a shot of the brandy. Catharine sipped the brandy as she tried to focus her watery eyes on the neatly written script on the page. French. Not quite perfect, but close enough.

  “Dear Grandfather:

  In response to your question, yes, I am planning to return to Italy as soon as I finish my degree in the spring. I have been offered a position at the Holy See for which I am eternally in your debt. Father Pershing here has been most helpful as you told me, but that it is not the reason for this letter.

  I have made a most startling discovery and would wish to discuss it with you at first opportunity in person. It has to do with a certain young man that has been missing for quite some time and only recently located in Texas, at an orphanage. I believe that a grave mistake has been made and that immediate action is required. Myself and/or my father might be endangered by certain information that was unwittingly given to an unfriendly force. We should meet at once so that I may give you the details of this incident. My father has instructed me to go to Lothian for a ‘holiday’ and he intends to meet me there. I believe that you should come as well. We will need to put our heads together as it were. Your loving grandson, L.J. d’Ornan.”

  Catharine read the words aloud. She turned the paper over and looked at the back.

  “I don’t understand. Who is L.J. d’Ornan? What does he have to do with us?” She raised her red-rimmed eyes to him.

  “He is your grandson.” Aristoni took her face between his hands and looked into her eyes. “You have eleven grandsons and two granddaughters, as well as, three great-grandsons and another on the way!”

  “What?” Catharine’s mouth fell open and she went limp in his hands.

  “I’m telling you that your son did not die. Edgard took him away and had him raised by monks.”

  “My God!” She leaned her elbows on the table. “Why?”

  “What else could he do? Think of the times, Catharine! You were a married woman. You had run away from your husband and then committed adultery with one of the high-ranking members of the Temple. One of the priestly monks of the Ordo Templi. The celibate Knights! And not only that, the indiscretion occurred within the walls of a monastery where you had been allowed sanctuary by the mercy of the benevolent brothers. I can think of no greater scandal. Can you? He would have been excommunicated. You would have been killed or imprisoned. Everything would have come out in public. The only thing that saved
you long enough for me to rescue you was the fact that the baby was premature. The good brothers thought your husband was the father. Again, he saved you! And he saved himself as well. Not only himself, but your son. He saved your son and made him immortal. You have to give him some credit. He was not a stupid man, but he had his duties and his future and yours to think about. I think it was a brilliant move. He knew that he had plenty of time to get back with you. To make it up to you when all the parties involved had passed on. I believe that it was his plan, or at least it was until you wrote that stupid letter to him, threatening to expose him to the Pope. That was very foolish, Catharine! What did you expect him to do?”

  “I expected him to keep his word! To marry me!” she cried.

  “And maybe he would have… eventually.”

  Aristoni doubted it. After they had left France, they had lost touch with d’Brouchart altogether. He had never been sure if the Assassin was supposed to kill both of them or just himself or if not both, then why would d’Brouchart want only to kill him? No, he was sure that it was both them that the venerable Grand Master wanted dead. Still wanted dead, like loose ends that needed to be neatly tied up, stitched together and dropped into a cold stone tomb.

  But Ramsay’s interest in the Hospitale Sancte Marie Theutonicorum Jerosolimitanum had taken him completely by surprise. The Knight had even repeated the by-words ‘Death to the Templars’. Had not Ramsay approached him in this manner, he would have tried to kill him first and ask questions later. It had not been the first time that they had met face to face, but Ramsay had been unaware of the fact that his quarry had been standing a few dozen feet from him on the streets of Berlin, watching him as he watched the people coming and going in the front door of the hotel where he had been staying. The assassin had come very close to finding them that time. But Aristoni had had the advantage of knowing what Ramsay looked like whereas Ramsay did not know him except through descriptions and questionable renderings and later on, foggy photographs. They had ridden on the opposite sides of the fence for a very long time, just out of reach of one another. His best advantage had always been that Ramsay believed that he was incognito.