The Centaur

by Brendan Carroll

  “I suppose.” He said and then snapped to attention as her words registered. “That would not be wise.”

  “Oh? Why not?” she raised up and frowned at him. She was beautiful. No one would have ever guessed that she was a hideous monster beneath the thin layer of skin.

  “He might know and he would be angry.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know why. I just think he would not like it, my Queen.” He had spotted the box. Third shelf from the top to the right of the door.

  “Let’s try it and see. What can he do, kill us?” she laughed and Abaddon shivered. He had no idea what she would see if she looked in the thing.

  “Show me how to use it,” she handed it over to him.

  “Oh, it would not be proper.” He shook his head and held out one hand. “No, please.”

  “I think it would be very proper.” Her expression hardened and he knew he had no choice. “In fact, we may be able to learn what these idiots are up to outside the city walls. I want to know why Saboath has not returned! He has been gone too long.” She picked up the skull and swept from the room. Abaddon scooped the box from the shelf before he left behind her and pushed it into the thigh pocket of his combat fatigues. “I still would warn against using the thing in haste, my Queen,” he called after her futilely.

  The dark angel followed her into the depths of the underground complex below the palace. The palace was old. Many palaces had stood on this very same choice piece of real estate on the Tigris river. The complex below it had been built and rebuilt by many former rulers of the country formerly called Iraq. She led him down several flights of metal stairs to a large room, tastefully furnished with priceless antiques from western Europe. He wondered if Omar had known of the existence of the palace below the palace and doubted it seriously.

  Several soldiers and security personnel vacated the area when they entered and Huber bolted the door.

  “Pour us something cool to drink, General,” she waved one hand behind her and plopped down amidst a pile of plush cushions on the floor. She laid the skull in silken cloth on a heavy square table. A dozen candles burned in silver and brass candlesticks placed around the room. There were no electric lights at the moment. The siege machine outside had knocked out the generators again.

  The General followed her orders and brought a pair of crystal goblets full of dark wine to the table. He sat down cross-legged at her bidding.

  “Now, show me.”

  She turned up the wine and drank a long swallow of it before looking at him invitingly.

  “Ahhh,” was all he could manage. He had no experience with crystal magick. He knew nothing of the skulls. He was lost. “Here.” He turned the skull to face her and set two of the candlesticks on either side of it before pretending to line them up just so. “Can you see the reflection of the fire in the glass, my Queen?” he asked her and she nodded. “Concentrate on the flames until they merge together into one burning image. When you have done that, shape the flame into the visage of the one you wish to communicate with.” He was making it up as he went along.

  “I see it.”

  “Good. Now, you must remember these things take time and practice. It is not an easy task, conjuration. Not easy at all. One must be very careful or else one might conjure something one does not wish to conjure.”

  “I understand.”

  “Can you see the Prophet’s face?”

  “Yes!” she answered breathlessly and Abaddon scooted around the table to take a look. He could see nothing.

  “Ahhh. What is he doing?”

  “He is talking to someone.”

  “Can you see them?”

  “No.”

  “What is he saying?”

  “He is speaking of Tiamat.”

  “Tiamat?” Abaddon swallowed hard. This was not supposed to be happening.

  “He is saying Tiamat must not be allowed passage to the overworld.”

  “That is certainly true.” Abaddon muttered.

  “He is saying that they must be careful and wait. That Leviathan does not belong to him.”

  “Leviathan?” Abaddon felt his knees grow weak. Tiamat. Leviathan.

  “He is saying that he knows nothing of the whereabouts of Urim and Thummin.” Huber pushed away from the table and frowned at Abaddon. “You didn’t tell me he’d lost the Urim and Thummin!”

  “I didn’t know, my Queen.” Abaddon sat up straight, bowing his head in trepidation. “He doesn’t tell me everything.”

  “I see.”

  The queen leaned closer to the skull and tried to focus on the twin flames again.

  “I see the face of the Ramsay son.”

  “Which one?” Abaddon’s mind was in chaos.

  “Luke. Luke Andrew. He is with the Prophet…” her voice trailed off. “Something is not right here, Abaddon.”

  “What do you mean? Perhaps he has taken him prisoner.”

  “I don’t think so. They speak as friends. I am seeing the wrong Prophet. Help me with this.”

  “I cannot help you. You must learn to control the visions, my lady. It is up to you.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” she rubbed her eyes. “What else can it do?”

  “It can focus destructive powers. I have seen this done. It can enhance the energy within magickal circles of incantations. This I have also witnessed. My former Master Marduk used them to enhance his conjurations. Omar also used them in his own circles of power.”

  “Omar. Did you see him?” Huber turned her large brown eyes on the dark angel.

  “I did not see him, my Lady, but I am told that he was with the enemy troops.”

  “And in what form?” she asked.

  “Again, I am not sure.”

  “I wonder if he would still love me…”

  “I don’t think it would be wise to test that question, my Lady.”

  “Did you find that weasel, Bari?”

  “Yes, my Lady. The Prophet has him under restraint.”

  “Good! And Nicole?”

  “She was with him.”

  “And the other two?”

  “Also taken in battle.”

  “Dead?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “Good.”

  Huber stood up and began to drag the heavy furniture across the tiled floor. Abaddon watched her in confusion.

  “Help me.” She nodded to an elaborate Louis XV divan.

  “What may I ask are we doing, my Queen?” As they shoved the sofa against the wall, the legs screeched irritatingly on the floor.

  “Making room for a circle. I want you to show me how to draw a magick circle.”

  “My lady, I am unschooled in sorcery.”

  “You know enough. You’ve seen it done. Just show me the way and I will take it from there.”

  Abaddon nodded and felt a cold hand grip his heart. This was exactly what his new Master had predicted would happen. Everything now depended on his ability to carry out the instructions of his Master. If Huber learned to contact the beyond directly, they would have more trouble and the mention of Tiamat had frightened him. Tiamat. The Queen of Chaos. More than anything else, Abaddon regretted leaving Marduk Kurios’ side. It was Marduk who had defeated Tiamat in the uncharted depths of history. It was Marduk who had sent Sabaoth back to oblivion and it was Marduk who would never ever forgive him, no matter what he might do now. His only hope was to please Lord Adar enough to cause him to want to intervene with Marduk on his behalf. Only Adar could save Abaddon from Marduk. And then, of course, there was the little matter of Lucifer, but Lucifer in and of himself was nothing at all when compared with Tiamat.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  Mark Andrew took one last look back toward the kitchen and then ducked quickly inside the door leading down to the cellar. He closed the door softly behind him and then stepped lightly down the stairs, trying to avoid the squeaky boards. Sophia was up there somewhere. The last time he’d seen her, she had been on her way
upstairs to take a nap at his insistence. The pregnancy was not going well at all. She suffered the so-called morning sickness well into the afternoon on most days and there were dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. Insomnia had set in almost as soon as they had arrived at the house, and she often woke him up, begging him to come and sleep in her room. He did not think it proper and so he sat outside her door on most nights, napping in a chair while she tossed and turned.

  Both Selwig and Nicole had prepared many potions for her, but none seemed to help her for more than an hour or two. Queen Meredith’s unexpected arrival followed closely by the arrival of Queen Oriel from France had made him forget the odd assortment of treasures he had stashed in a wooden crate in the laboratory. He’d made one last quick trip down to the lab after Nicole had repaired the kitchen sink to stow them out of sight and then they had slipped his mind altogether. Only to return to him during dinner when the Frankish Queen, a deceptively sweet and demure little lady with blonde hair and big sad eyes, had asked if they had seen any sign of the Urim and Thummin during the ‘engagement’, as she called it, with the ‘enemy’, as she referred to the hideous monster in charge of the former emperor’s army. Mark had made no comment as Sophia explained how limited their own part in the ‘engagement’ had been. The Queens, both of them, had been very disappointed to hear so little of the Templars and the Kings to whom they were married until Nicholas allowed Gregory to tell the story from his point of view.

  Surprisingly, the younger Sinclair-Ramsay had seen a great deal of ‘action’ as Nicholas called it during the ‘skirmish’ as Bari called it. Gregory had given them all a pleasantly colorful monograph, detailing all of his victories over the ‘insidious fiends’, as he called the Fox soldiers, along with some very encouraging descriptions of the health of both the King of the Britons and the King of the Franks. It seemed that the only one of interest that had taken serious damage had been the real Prophet, Omar Kadif, Bari’s father. Mark had winced when the excited young man had described how Omar had tried, single-handedly, to stop the army of the Romanian Baron, when the ‘incredibly stupid demi-god’ had attempted to steal the precious relic of the Elohim. Mark had listened to this story with rapt fascination though it meant very little to him personally. At least it had meant nothing personal until Oriel had asked about the Urim and Thummin. The thing that Selwig had brought to him in the yellow bag.

  His research on the object that vaguely resembled spectacles had proven very disturbing, but had satisfied his curiosity and left no doubt as to it’s identity as the Urim and Thummin or more correctly, Urim and Thummin, twin creatures of opposite polarities similar to the angels, but not quite. Unlike the angels, who had apparently taken an interest in humanity for some few millennia, Urim and Thummin were purely indifferent to the identity of whom they served. Their one desire, he had ascertained through meditative study of the objects, and consuming commonality, was freedom from the crystal prisons in which they currently resided. One of them, Urim, was a creature of light and purity, embodying a positive aspect. The other, Thummin, was a dark creature, totally devoid of light, possessed of a negative aspect. The arrangement in which they were situated in the metal frame, balanced the two opposing forces and focused them as a powerful tool when used by properly trained individuals. Ill-used, it could be a dangerous weapon.

  If one held Thummin in front of the right eye and mustered the power of the left brain, destruction followed in the path of the energy exuded from the device. If the thing were reversed and Urim was held in front of the left eye and the right side of the brain were stimulated, then the speculum created a powerful protective envelope around the user. It was an ingenious device. Superb. Divine… Mark shuddered as he remembered the exploded vials and vessels that had been inadvertently destroyed as he toyed with the thing, learning its secrets, as well as the close call he had suffered when the broken shards of pottery, crockery and glass had been funneled directly toward his face. A near disaster had been averted only by ducking and running, but now he had it figured out. His research and systematic investigation had subsequently unraveled the mystery of the odd machine.

  He pulled the heavy lab door closed and bolted the door from the inside. Disturbances will not be tolerated! He thought as he chuckled to himself and then frowned. Something seemed different in the lab. The changes were subtle, but obvious to him as his eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering through the dirty panes of glass in the skylight. Those would have to be cleaned. Perhaps Bari could do it. A scuttling noise in the corner made him jump and he dropped the match as he tried to light the oil lamp on the counter. The lit match hit the table and bounced off. Mark grabbed at the matchstick and was then stunned to see the match rising into the air, seemingly on its own. The flame touched the wick on the oil lamp and the interior of the dim laboratory brightened somewhat. The burned out stick of wood fell to the counter and bounced off, landing on the floor. Mark stood perfectly still in the heavy silence in which he could actually hear the minute sizzle of the oil lamp’s wick. There was nothing here. Again, he jumped at the same scuttling noise in one of the darkened corners of the lab.

  Moving very slowly and deliberately, his heart pounding in his ears, he jammed a paraffin candle in a pewter candle stick and held the wick to the lamp. The flame caught and he walked cautiously toward the noise. The heavy shadows receded in front of him as he held the candle above the odds and ends littering the corner. Nothing moved. The dust coated everything here evenly. No one had disturbed these alchemical oddities. Even Nicole had not ventured into the messier parts of the lab and had confined her work to the cleaner parts of the lab. When he found nothing, not even a rat, a mouse or an errant beetle, he drew a deep breath and held it briefly before retreating to the table.

  Again, his heart raced as he beheld the black silk cloth lying under the light of the lamp. The lamp swung on its chain as if it had been bumped and still nothing moved in the room other than himself… and the lamp… and the shadows on the table and the floor. The black silk cloth had been placed in the wooden crate along with the crystal skull, the spear of Longinus and the Urim and Thummin. Mark repressed the urge to bolt and run in search of Sophia, but she needed her nap and he was supposed to be her protector. Sophia had warned him about going outside and straying away from the house alone. She had also warned him not to speak to strangers if anyone ventured onto the estate, but she had not explained why she screamed in her sleep, and then sobbed deliriously about seeing ‘ghosties’ and ‘ghoulies’. He had subsequently looked up both words in the library. Therefore, he knew exactly what this was. A classic haunting. A ghost or a ghoul was harassing him.

  “Get thee behind me, Satan,” he repeated the words that he had read in the tattered book in the Ramsay library and then smiled at his own bravery before making the sign of the cross over the black cloth. When nothing happened, he reached for the cloth cautiously and took hold of the corner. He pulled it off and then stepped back quickly.

  At first, he could not make out what it was he was looking at. It seemed that his ghostie or ghoulie had made a mess of his relics. The white braid had been unraveled and the hair wrapped around each of the two crystal balls in the metal frame. The two silver ornaments dangled from the frame on either side. The spear had also been wrapped about with hair on one end. If he had picked up the Urim and Thummin, the spear would have dangled point down from the centerpiece and each of the earrings would have hung below the two orbs. Another word came to his mind. Poltergeist. A phenomenon related to ghosts and ghouls according to the books and dictionaries. A poltergeist was a troublesome entity that often played tricks on the residents of the homes in which they took up. Tricks such as stacking the furniture in bizarre towers, throwing utensils and objects about kitchens, turning pictures up-side-down, causing coals to leap out of fireplaces, rattling…

  Mark’s thoughts were interrupted by a movement more felt than seen behind him. He whirled around and found himself face to face with not on
e, but two ephemeral shapes. One dark like a hole in the very fabric of the space between himself and the door and the other a shimmering green glow, vaguely human in shape. His ghosts.

  Again, he made the sign of the cross in front of himself and repeated, with a bit more force “Get thee behind me, Satan!”

  The two enigmatic forms winked out of existence and Mark let go a long sigh. Sophia would be furious with him. He would not tell her about this. Her nightmares were bad enough already. If she learned that their basement was haunted, she would never sleep again… and neither would he.

  He turned around and was again startled to find the same two figures standing or hovering behind him, between himself and the lab table.

  “Dammit!” he swore and tried to calm his racing heart. He made the sign of the cross once more and virtually shouted the same words at the things. Again they disappeared and he sagged against the lab table. He pulled up the stool and sat down heavily. His hands were shaking and he was covered in a cold film of sweat. The moisture beaded on the gold film on the back of his hand. He picked up the handle of the Urim and Thummin and squinted at the mess. The hair was wrapped smoothly around each orb, almost completely obscuring them from sight. He disentangled the spear first and slipped the silver chain over his head before continuing. Laying the relic back on the black cloth, he very carefully slipped the hair off the crystal. It came free easily. So easily, in fact, he was somewhat surprised. He pulled the hair from the opposite ball and laid the hair and the attached earrings aside in a pile. The globes seemed to be unharmed, but he sucked in a sharp breath as he remembered the crystal skull. It was not on the table.

  He picked up the handle again, intending to carry the device with him while he searched for the skull and was horrified to see the two crystal spheres roll out of the frame, break smoothly in half and lie rocking slightly on the black silk.

  “Heaven help us!” Mark placed one hand over his mouth and dropped the silver frame to the floor.