Zolo blushed again, and could hardly think. All he could say was this:
"I must come with you to Mars."
But the reply was not what he wished:
"You cannot come. I need someone to guard my father and my back," she said and cupped his face with her hands once more. "Only Zolo Bold do I trust."
* Оверман *
THE LEGEND OF THE ANHALT SUN ANGEL CAME INTO BEING before young Zolo Bold's eyes, that late spring day in 1531, as the hot torture dungeon of Bärenthoren Castle echoed with the screams of agonized serfs, men and women both—the final outcome of the famous German Peasant Rebellion begun in 1524 that had spread from Alsace and Salzberg to shake the castle walls of a frightened Prussian nobility. Zolo learned of the Anhalt Sun Angel shortly after being sent by Saravastra to take employment at Bärenthoren as a way to watch over the Princess von Anhalt. A fresco of the Sun Angel painted on a far wall in the castle kitchen served as his introduction to the legend: a white-robed woman three feet high who looked very much like the Mother of God, floating in the air, rays of sun forming a giant halo around her body. Below her, soldiers stood in a bath of flame, lifting their arms on high to the Mother as if to ask forgiveness, or relief from the fire, or both.
Zolo asked chef Kaufman about it one morning, and he said with a gruff voice, "It's the Sun Angel," but later, one of the older maids, Gisela, told him the Sun Angel had appeared suddenly outside the castle one day, centuries ago, and took revenge on the "evil nobles of Anhalt" for their crimes of killing and torturing serfs they suspected of wishing rebellion. The nobles of the land, Anhalt included, were in process of raising taxes yet again and they wished to torture a number of serfs in advance, not only to make an example, but to gain valuable information, just in case a rebellion was being cooked up—even though no such thing was actually taking place.
What the maid did not know was that the Sun Angel had inspired a new heretical religious movement of serfs and peasants who called themselves Angel Light Protestants. The movement was put to the sword, and its leaders oven-burned in 1549, because the nobles feared it might eventually grow to unleash yet another peasant war.
Once Zolo later learned the truth, he could not tell Freddie that her display of magical power, that day in 1531, which freed the tortured souls of the Bärenthoren dungeon, had later resulted in the deaths of thousands in 1549. He would never burden her, and remarkably, due to Princess Johanna's terrorizing of the castle servants, so few spoke to Freddie of anything, much less the Sun Angel, though she'd seen the fresco in the kitchen when much younger.
Upon return to Bärenthoren, Freddie followed Zolo to see Babette. She uttered a spell that would speed Babette's recovery from Gur, turned to Zolo and said, "Now, some unfinished business, sir. Without further ado, we must defeat those torturers of Bärenthoren, as I made you promise."
Zolo tried to argue her out of it, though that proved impossible, of course. It was a loose end, one that need resolution before she joined with Maria of Pozzuoli and her other self to try and kill Master Godfellow. And so, a reluctant Zolo returned with Freddie to the stale air of the Bärenthoren dungeon, and without hesitation an aria that transported them, with the help of Mother Yarrow Maria, to the earliest time possible before the drawing of the Nicholas Line: May 3, 1531.
Freddie crashed in the heavy oaken door to the dungeon with one kick, splinters and fragments of the wood ripping out to fly across the room. Once done, they both entered to witness a vision of horror nothing could have prepared them for. Vomiting at the sight only moments after entry they glanced up to see the castle torture captain, Herr Borman, as well as his seven blood-spattered brutes, staring without even twitching a finger. The sudden explosion of door had paralyzed them. Freddie and Zolo's eyes next witnessed the naked and gory bodies of human beings whose flesh quivered in various stages of torture. Several men lay twisted by the rack, mouths open in frozen scream, others tied to tables, faces and chests bleeding and bruised by torture implements. Three women spun on the wheels, shrieking as they cooked, flame from the black pits licking up below while both Virgin Marys shook and hummed with muffled shrieks, the poor wretches locked within dying slowly.
But the sight that shook Freddie with deepest rage, as Zolo could see, was that of a naked and crying young boy, not more than nine years old, hung upside down and beaten with a thin rod of iron. His assailant, a rotten banana of cretin wearing nothing but sackcloth like some kind of Catholic monk, still held the rod. Like the rest of the trolls, he simply stared with his gap-toothed mouth hanging open.
Before Zolo could act on his own anger, Freddie unleashed another potent aria, deep and wall-shaking, one born of utter contempt and lived hatred:
Sentir a picadaaaa
do seu propio mal
monstros de Anhalt,
e lembre-se
esta dor leve no Infernnno!
(Feel the sting / of your own evil / monsters of Anhalt / and remember / this soft pain in Hell!)
Whereupon, the torture implements snapped into the air and turned upon the captain and his seven brutes. The torturers shouted and hopped as the objects chased them around the room, burning and biting them. Zolo grabbed the shrieking boy-torturer as he scampered towards the door and with one hand hurled him twenty feet through the air to break his back against one of the Crucifiers.
Meanwhile, Freddie sung more spurts of more aria to suit her enraged imagination, lifting and waving her hands as though conducting a symphony before the royal Prussian court. First, she released the victims of the torture from their bonds. The women separated and flew away from the wheels, and the Virgin Mary doors sprung open, their occupants floating forth. The racks reversed, and so on. All of the serf bodies drifted to one side, quieted and healing, and then, the castle torture fiends got hit by the second wave. Growling imps of flame sprang from the pits and jumped onto the backs of the screaming monsters, and by the shrillness of their cries, one could assume they were not comfortable with such searing pain. Two at a time they caught fire, in rapid succession, and then flew through the air as if hurled by a giant's hand. They smacked face first into the waiting arms of the Virgin Marys, the doors slamming shut and impaling them inside. But just as quickly, the doors swung open again and they hurtled out, only to be replaced by two more until all eight of them had been severely burned and then pin-cushioned by the Virgins.
Soon enough, the torture trolls lay in a heap, moaning in agony while their previous victims began to stand on their feet, amazed at their pains and wounds fading. Freddie waved her right hand at the left wall, and sang, Un túnel cara á luz (A tunnel to the light). At once, a black mouth of tunnel gaped open, and beyond it, a long throat that led out of the dungeon into sunlight.
"All of you, go from this horrible place!" Freddie yelled to the dazed and naked serfs. "Go!" They stood up, a few at a time, and scampered from the dungeon.
Zolo Bold would never forget what came next.
Without a glance at him, Freddie followed the serfs out of the dungeon, and Zolo right behind, stopping for a moment to look at the heap of smoldering torturers. He spit at them and started for the tunnel. The climb took only a few seconds, though Freddie had already vanished, and in those few seconds he heard a commotion outside the castle. An intense bright light stung his eyes as soon as he emerged. Where was it coming from? He looked up to see Freddie directly above, floating at least forty feet high in the air and facing the castle. The light emanating from her body was blinding and already withering the grass with its heat.
By the gods of Saravastra! Is she trying to imitate the sun itself?
Zolo heard someone on the wall fire a musket and its report echoed over the field. Shouts rang out as dazed castle guards ran to take their stations. But it was no use, not for them. The glowing light quickly heated their armor and each man ran away screaming, cooking like raw meat in a pot.
And as these men recovered from their burns in the weeks following the incident, they would tell
anyone who would listen that God had sent an angel of sunlight to punish the dark evils of Anhalt. Most of them would later join the Angel Light Protestants and die with honor, fighting for what they believed to be a just cause. If Freddie only knew, she would say God bless those men.
Zolo felt that to be true.
* Оверман *
STRENGTH RETURNED TO A WEEPING BABETTE. She lay in bed, her hands Christ-crossing her chest as she spoke of her brush with death. Outside the door, she had called out to her princess, fearing for her life, and quite suddenly, a horrible black mouth opened in her eyes and swallowed her into a burning dark place. She shuddered to think of it, and Freddie soothed her by stroking her face, saying "It's all over my precious Babette, all over, and it will never happen again. You are in my keeping now," whereupon Babette reached up to hold her close and they both cried together.
Zolo watched and sat on the bed, his hand on Babette's leg beneath the covers. She still thought of him as Willie, and always would, believing he was a relative; and of course, he would never tell her differently. A lie of necessity and convenience, arranged by Paganini, implanted in Babette's mind. "Willie" had played the part, and even come to enjoy it and feel real affection for Babette. In fact, he rather loved her, being a motherless young man in need of an older woman to care for him and scold him now and then. Nothing wrong with that.
So in truth, a lie has created a good thing for all.
Still, Zolo hesitated at being comfortable with lying, especially when it came to lying to Freddie. He would never be as easy with lying as Paganini seemed to be. Then again, Master Paganini had responsibilities Zolo could only begin to imagine. The strain on the man must be unbelievable. After all, he was attempting to orchestrate an entire new future for Earth, one without needless wars and fanatics. Not exactly a rose garden in spring! So what difference a few lies?
Will the end justify the means?
A question Zolo asked himself all the time, and quite often, the answer was not always clear. If only his clearness of purpose might be as iron hard as that of the Lord of Saravastra.
"Rest easy now, my Babette," Freddie said, still stroking her face, "I have some business to attend to, so sleep now and we will both be on our feet in the morning." And as Freddie stroked Babette's face, she said, Durmir agora, meu amor (Sleep now, my love).
Babette dozed off and Freddie stood up from the bed, as did Zolo. His concern for her returned like a pointed crossbow at his head. He faced, reached out to her arm, and pulled her close to him. She unexpectedly kissed him full on the mouth. Zolo could only respond, his head moaning into a daze with the power of it. She pulled back after a moment and said to him, "You do not fault me for killing those torture dungeon monsters, do you?"
"No. How can I? I felt the same sense of rage ... I think I would have been crueler to them, but you had it all under control, my Sun Angel of Anhalt."
Zolo told her of the Sun Angel fresco in the kitchen and the legend. She was amazed. She knew of the fresco, of course, though not making the connection since returning. As for the legend, no servant ever told her. They were all so terrified of showing familiarity with nobility. What other legends and secrets did they hold close?
All for another day.
“Now, take me with you, I beg you,” Zolo said. “I will arrange a spell to watch and guard your father."
"But Gur is here, and Master Paganini avoided me when I told him I would save my father, so he also believes he must die. Too many powerful beings, Mister Bold. Too much to worry about. I must have you here ... And I must have you safe."
"You fear I might die if I join you?"
"This will be a horribly violent struggle with that monster Godfellow. You said yourself how powerful and protected he is."
Zolo felt a sting to his pride. Of course, she was right, though it hurt nonetheless. He wished to be her protector, not the other way around. "You will do battle on Mars without me," he said, fear filling his eyes, "But where are you planning to meet your Mother Yarrow and your older self? On the Martian surface?"
She hesitated, as if uncertain, and said, "No, not on Mars. We will be involved at a primary conflict point in Earth history, all part of my Saravastra training, but during the battle we will use War Tracker's connection to Godfellow in order to pull him to the conflict point from his headquarters in a place called Dubai, and from there, transport all four of us to Mars. It will take less than a moment. I do not completely understand, but the three of us working together can do it, and there will be no trail to follow. Like the cogs of a watch, sir, all behind the veil."
Zolo could not contain his growing irritation. "It's all that simple, eh? You will pull Godfellow into a Nexus Zone while combat is raging with the Dio Soldati, and Ahriman knows what else, and then catapult him to Mars while all of you tag along for the ride?"
"I do not know what a Nexus Zone is, Mister Bold, but I know this plan will work."
Zolo became angry at her calm certainty. "The World Maker can turn a second into a day, a year into a moment. He can give the centuries one beautiful pair of wings and send them gliding above the ocean at sunrise before setting them on fire. Do you really know who you are dealing with?"
"I am tired of having that dog Godfellow praised to me."
"What? I am not—"
"The die is cast. I will hear no more of it."
"But you still have not told me—"
"I cannot say which primary conflict point."
"You do not trust me?"
"I am afraid you might become so fearful for my life that you might give away this conflict point to Master Paganini in hopes of an intervention ... I am sorry, sir."
"Your words cut deep, though what you say is not without merit."
"You must vow to say nothing of my words to Master Paganini, even what little I have told you."
"You have my word, Princess von Anhalt," Zolo said with a solemn tone.
He considered what he was doing. If Master Paganini ever knew of his betrayal, what would come of that? It seemed as though he was fated to betray everyone. Who comes next? Should he just resign himself to being chewed in the jaws of Satan along with Brutus and Judas?
He saw Freddie staring into his eyes. She noted his pain and worry, and softened. She kissed him one more time, told him that when he left this room his memory of her plan will not be seen by Margaret of Anjou, but if he speaks of the plan to anyone, Margaret will know. Zolo watched as she turned and sat down on a chair in the room, a short wooden one with a leather back and cushion, and she smiled and said with a strong voice of cheer:
"For Diderot and Saravastra!"
"For Diderot, Locke and Saravastra," Zolo replied half-heartedly.
Freddie laughed. "Locke too then!" One last brave smile and she vanished as she whispered to the air: "Nai Yarrow …"
Following her departure, Zolo walked over and sat down beside a small table in the corner of the room, watching the chair where she sat only seconds before. He half expected her to return in a moment, flushed with victory, or perhaps minus her head. Anything was possible.
She did not return though, with head or without.
Zolo sat there for an hour and pondered the possible death of the woman he loved, or perhaps the death of Master Godfellow, Earth's first and greatest World Maker, or both of them, taking place two billion years ago on a dead planet so faraway that even the light from it was of less importance than a speck of dust falling on his skin.
Оверман
9
Battle of The Somme - White Mongol Gods - Stars, Souls, and Fire
THE "CREEPING BARRAGE" OF THE BRITISH ARTILLERY AT THE SOMME awoke Catherine early one morning on July 1, 1916. The Czarina had lived with the German infantry troops during the many days of nonstop shelling begun much earlier on June 24. She did not have to endure it. She chose to do so. She chose to know the unspeakable horrors and catastrophe that Niccolo Paganini spoke of, and thereby finally understand his fanatical av
ersion to the world wars of the 20th century, to fully identify with his need to change the history of that century for all time.
Were the conflicts as terrible and pointless as he depicted?
Catherine knew the answer, and it was yes, a thousand times, and a thousand times more, far more terrible and pointless than could ever be dreamed. Tens of millions dead, and even after just one hour of head-bursting explosion quivering the earth, she realized, as she squatted in a dark concrete bunker with a small group of terrified men, that all her magic and wisdom acquired to this point in her life had not prepared her—her struggles with dark forces, face to face, like the bites of fleas compared to the roaring black plague of World War I in Europe.
Though why this particular time and place?
In the War Room at Saravastra, while planning strategy at "primary conflict points" that could forever alter the 20th century, Paganini told Freddie that history recorded the eight days of shelling by the British on the German lines at the Somme, beginning on June 24, 1916, as creating one of the most "horrific hells" ever known.
As required of all Paganini's forces in the field, Catherine thoroughly studied the history involved, learned it in Saravastra, so she knew upon using a precise aria spell to land in that German army bunker beside the French village of Guillemont near the Somme River on June 24, all the details of the conflict in the way of a good general. She realized it would be different than wars of her century, or previous times, certainly louder and more violent, but "louder and more violent" could not begin to explain it.
Within only hours of arrival, she squirmed and wept, her head aching and nerves wracked beyond belief until, like the rest of the quivering humanity in that hot and filthy candle-lit box of shadows, and like the mud-soaked wretches in the nearby trenches (all tricked into believing war would be a rightful and glorious adventure), she began to physically shake and feel sanity draining from her. Out of all the atrocities she’d ever experienced, this was the worst.
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