The Centaur

by Brendan Carroll

  “Heaven? You know of Heaven?” A wavery voice, not quite human asked the question from behind him.

  He shrieked as he turned. The two forms were again visible in front of him.

  “Stay back!” He shouted at the undulating figures.

  “Do you wish us to get behind you again?” The question seemed to be coming from the general direction of the greenish form.

  “Where is my skull? What have you done with it?” Mark demanded to know even though his own voice was almost as quivery as his supernatural visitor’s.

  “Why… in your head, sir,” came the immediate response.

  “Not my skull! The skull. The crystal skull.”

  “Ohhhh. I’m afraid it is dead.”

  “Dead?” Mark’s eyes widened. “Of course it’s dead. Skulls are dead.”

  “Not all of them.” The voice now sounded sad and thin. “But I’m afraid we killed it when we opened it. What is this strange language that you speak? Are you the Dove?”

  “Heaven help me.” Mark stumbled against the stool.

  “Ye’ll need more than ’eaven t’ ’elp ye now, laddie. Ye’ll need part o’ hell as well,” the words came from his mouth as he gripped the counter once more. He placed one hand on the lab table to steady himself and then froze as he felt something wrap around his wrist.

  When he managed to turn his head to take a look at what new horror was assaulting him, he saw the white hair, once more braided together, wrapped around his wrist. He felt the cold silver ornaments on the back of his hand. A tremendous blue flash erupted behind his eyelids and pain shot through the middle of his head, down his spine, both legs and into his feet. He looked down at his feet expecting to see them ripped apart by the force of the pain that had felt like a thunderbolt ripping through him. “Thot’s more loike it. I think I moight get me feet undar me now.”

  It was the same voice that often spoke to him inside his head, but now it was speaking outside his head. At first, Mark was terrified that he might be dying and then he felt like he was falling in a soft warm, blanket that caught him and lifted him up. He looked up toward the dirty skylight and saw not the brown and green algae coating the old panes of glass, but rather he saw a brilliant white light and in the center of the light, he saw a white dove flying toward him. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

  His eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped onto the floor.

  “Do you think he has gone to Heaven?” the quivery voice asked in the silence that followed.

  “I do not think so, my brother,” the second voice had more substance, but sounded hollow as if inside a barrel. “I’m sure that he is the Dove and will soon arise from his rest. Perhaps he was overcome by your radiance.”

  “Perhaps he was overcome by your dark splendor,” Urim countered.

  “Perhaps,” Thummin agreed.

  Chapter Four of Seventeen

  Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide

  in the fierceness of his anger?

  Mark Andrew blinked rapidly in confusion as he tried to focus on the summit of the angry mountain. The lightning did not stop, the rumbling continued to dislodge rocks and boulders, sending them skittering dangerously down the mountainside into the midst of the Templar host camped at its foot. For a moment, he had lost touch with reality and seen only the face of Sophia Cardinelli. He’d hardly even thought of her since consigning her over to his son, his grandsons and his daughter. They would take care of Sophia now. She was beyond his grasp just as Meredith had always been, but at least he had been able to recognize the futility of his love before it took him into another bottomless pit of perdition. He turned as someone behind him called his name.

  “Christopher!” Mark smiled and then embraced his former apprentice. The sight of his beloved face, smeared with the grime of the desert was a great comfort.

  “Brother, we had given up on you!” Christopher squeezed the life out of him and kissed him on both cheeks before kissing him, lightly on the lips in the Templar fashion. Christopher was the only Knight who still gave the Chevalier du Morte this venerable greeting. Mark had to assume that the rest were too afraid of him now to kiss him. Even Simon had resorted to shaking his hand, refusing to look directly in his eyes unless forced. These reactions only added to his sense of isolation and loneliness. The Knights seemed unimpressed with Edgard d’Brouchart’s transformation from rough, gruff Master to angelic presence, but their fear of the Knight of Death was almost palpable no matter how hard they tried to hide it.

  “I had some business away to the north.” He followed the Knight of the Holy City toward the encampment. “The siege of New Babylon is well under way.”

  “That is good news and we’ve had very little.” Christopher spoke over his shoulder. “You are looking well,” he commented. The last time they had seen Mark Ramsay, he’d been wearing a filthy, borrowed kilt, smeared and caked with desert sand and grit. Now he was pristinely clean in a crisp black uniform that resembled those worn by the Fox soldiers. He wore an automatic pistol under his jacket and the indomitable golden sword on his left hip. The black, multi-pocketed trousers were tucked in the top of his shining black combat boots and the leather scabbard slapped the top of his boot as he walked. Christopher, on the other hand was only partially clean. He had made use of Lucio’s well as best he could and washed his socks, but his Templar Uniform had been replaced by desert camouflage fatigues, badly stained from the road with many small rips and tears in the fabric. He wore a Kevlar helmet on his head with a brown cloth covering the back of his neck. A dust mask hung from strings tied to one of his pockets. He did not carry his sword, but wore an assortment of weapons, mostly eastern throwing devices on a canvass belt that crisscrossed his back. He also carried an automatic rife with a laser sight and wore a pair of ivory gripped, Colt .45 revolvers in western style holsters. A cowboy Ninja. Mark had to smile as he assessed the American’s condition. Christopher had always been what was once called a ‘scrapper’. It was good to see that nothing much had changed in that respect. He also carried two water bottles and an ammo bag.

  Soldiers were perched all along the path leading to the compound below, watching the summit and the desert beyond the hills for anything that might present a threat. They had erected a sort of landslide shelter that would divert the smaller rocks and debris coming down the mountain, but there were signs of damage to tents and vehicles from larger projectiles. So far, they had lost no one, but there had been some close calls and a few broken bones.

  Lucio was the first to see them approaching the Grand Master’s command tent. The Italian started out to meet them, stopped, turned his back and then changed his mind again. He turned and walked more slowly toward them.

  “Brother Ramsay.” Lucio smiled slightly when they stopped in front of him. “It is good of you to return.”

  “Thank you.” Mark nodded to him and then waited. Lucio made no move to greet him further before turning again toward the tent.

  “You might like to know the Master is rather perturbed with you. He has, as usual, been taking it out on me.”

  “Thank you for standing in for me, Brother.” Mark could not help but repress a smile at the Italian’s sarcasm. So he was ticked off, still. Nothing surprising in that.

  “It was nothing unusual.”

  “The Master says that we are ready to proceed.” Christopher told him. “I was surprised to learn that my mystery held so much about this place.” The youthful looking man waved one hand toward the summit of the mountain. “I didn’t know that Mount Sinai qualified as a Holy City. Perhaps there was more here than the Scriptures allowed. There are ruins up there that seem to bear out the suspicion that there was once a sizable population of people inhabiting this area. The Temple of Jethro was a fairly extensive complex at some point. Very interesting to say the least.”

  “I’m sure.” Mark nodded and stopped short of the canopy in front of the tent. “Where’s Edgard?”

  Instead of
proceeding further, Lucio stepped up on a bench beside a small table and sat down on the top. Mark took a seat on the bench.

  “He’s at Simon’s tent with Simon’s boys and Konrad. They are going over the final preparations for the procession,” Christopher told him as he unfolded a canvass stool and sat down.

  “Procession.” Mark nodded and repeated the word.

  “Should be quite a parade, Brother. I volunteered to be the clown.”

  “Ahhh. That should have fit with the Master’s plans.” Mark nodded solemnly. “Has Corrigan been behaving himself?”

  “Like a pet schoolboy. You should see them together.” Lucio grumbled. “For two centavos, the Master would throw me out on my ear and replace me with his pretty son. Nothing ever really changes, does it?”

  “No, not really, only our perspectives.” Mark looked up Lucio and the Italian looked away from him quickly.

  “I am not worried about it. It just seems ironic. Here we are about to die, no doubt, and the same petty quarrels go on and on. I had hoped after my descent things would be different.”

  “And so they are. You seem to appreciate the truth of the matter now.” Mark smiled at Christopher. “You are looking well, Christopher.”

  “I never had the opportunity to thank you, Brother, for saving my life so many times.” Christopher also looked away from him and his face turned dark with embarrassment. “I realize that I would not even be here if it were not for you. I just wanted you to know I truly appreciate what you did for me.”

  “I was always selfish, Christopher.” Mark told him. “It is one of my failings. I like to keep things too long. They either wither and die or turn to stone. Even blood dries into dust.”

  “That’s a morbid thought.” Lucio commented and then watched curiously as Mark opened one of the many pockets on his trousers. He pulled out a small wooden box carved with pomegranates and palm trees. “Aha! Solomon’s treasure.”

  “Mmm hmm,” Mark frowned and lifted the lid. The sparse remains of the Tree of Life lay in the box like granules of instant coffee. “Not much left.”

  Mark Andrew laid the box on the table. “Edgard will be happy to have it back, I suppose.”

  “I suppose,” Lucio mumbled and ran one finger over the carvings on the box.

  Mark stood up and stretched his arms over his head.

  “Which way to Simon’s tent?” He asked and raised both eyebrows. “Time to be the consummate party pooper.”

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  “Sophia?” Mark blinked at her face which was only inches away from his.

  “Mark?” She did not move back, but continued to look into his face.

  “You are Sophia?” He asked.

  “Of course, don’t be silly.”

  A cold blackness covered his eyes and he tried to get away from her.

  “Mark!” She appeared again, this time further away. “What are doing?!” She was clearly frustrated and he could see that the blackness had been caused by a wet cloth compress that she was trying to use to wash his face. He felt hot and cold and sweaty. “Hold still now. You’re shivering. We have to get this cleaned up and see if you need stitches.”

  “Stitches?” He frowned and then slowly became aware of pain on his forehead, pain at the back of his head and several pains from the hard surface on which he was lying. “What happened?”

  “You apparently fell.” She dabbed at the cut on his forehead and he winced. “It looks superficial.”

  “It doesn’t feel superficial.” He tried to push himself up and she protested.

  “Hold on a minute, Daddy.” Nicole’s face hovered over him momentarily and then disappeared.

  “Meredith?” He jerked his head up, trying to follow her movements, but Sophia pushed him back with too much force. Pain shot through his head.

  “Oww! Look, lassie, I’m foine. Let me up now before ye kill me.”

  “What did you say?” Two worried female faces appeared over him.

  He waved them away and pushed himself up on one elbow. He was lying in the hallway and they were kneeling beside him.

  Nicole and Sophia helped him to his feet, both of them plying him with questions. What had happened? Where had he been? Why had he been there? Where was he going? Why didn’t he call them? Was there an intruder? And so and so forth as he stumbled into the kitchen and sat down at the long table.

  “I’ll make you a cup of tea, Daddy,” Nicole told him and busied herself at the stove.

  “Now tell me what happened.” Sophia sat down across from him and took his hands in hers, staring intently into his face.

  “I fell.” He said carefully as the memories of what had happened in the lab returned. “Tripped over something, I think.”

  “Then you’re not sick? Do you feel dizzy?”

  “No. Just pain.” He looked past her, watching curiously as Nicole put the kettle on the stove and set about making a pot of tea.

  “Nicole.” He repeated her name softly and Sophia leaned slightly to the left to block his view.

  “Mark? Are you sure you are all right?” She had heard him say Meredith’s name distinctly. Mark did not know Meredith except as the Queen of the Britons. Sometimes he frightened her with the things that seemed to come out of the blue. Somewhere inside that skull were memories she really wished that he would never regain.

  “The Queen.” He nodded and smiled at her and she sighed in relief. “Meredith is the Queen. Nicole is not her daughter. Meredith… Merry Ramsay is Luke Matthew Ramsay’s wife. Luke Matthew Ramsay is the King of the Britons.”

  “Yes, Mark. That’s right. The Queen is upstairs and so is Queen Oriel of the Franks. They are upstairs talking. Do you want to see them? Is there something you would like to tell them? Anything?” Sophia felt that the bump on his forehead and the one on the back of his head were more severe than she had first believed. “Can you see clearly? How many fingers am I holding up?”

  She held up three fingers and he counted them, touching the tip of each one as he said the number out loud, but when he came to the end, he kept going and folded her fingers down.

  “I’m fine,” he said more convincingly. “Really. Just give me a moment or two. That tea smells good, Nicole.”

  The blonde woman dressed in jeans and a bulky sweater set three cups, honey and cream on the table.

  “You were fooling about in the cellar again, weren’t you, Daddy?” Nicole asked as she went back for the pot. She brought the ceramic teapot to the table and then went back to urge the kettle to boil.

  “A watched pot never boils,” Mark answered her, but kept smiling at Sophia.

  “Yes they do,” Nicole objected. “You just have to watch long enough. I don’t think you should go down there alone, Daddy. Something’s weird down there. Wacko. I thought I heard someone screaming down there last night.”

  “Oh?” Mark’s eyebrows went up and then down quickly as the movement caused pain.

  “You need a bandage.” Sophia got up. “I’m going to get the first aid box.”

  Mark watched as the dark-haired woman headed off toward the front of the house.

  “Nicole!” He was up instantly.

  “What, Daddy?” She looked at him in surprise when he took her hands.

  “You heard screams down in the cellar? Last night?”

  “I said I thought I did. It was probably just a dream.”

  “Where is Luke Matthew?”

  “He’s in Egypt or Arabia or somewhere.” She frowned at him. “Look, Daddy. Go sit down, please. You’re not well. I don’t care what you say. You are not well. Luke Matthew could give a rat’s ass about you and you should know that. He was deplorable.” She turned back to watching the kettle as he stood looking about the kitchen in confusion. “I wanted to slap his face, I swear. He could have at least acknowledged your presence. He should realize that any improvement over the Chevalier du Morte is an improvement. It must be sort of like what happened when Luke Andrew fell off in the Abyss wit
h King Ramsay. That’s when his attitude toward dear, old Father started to change. I’m afraid I never got to know him, but look at me, rambling on like this. Here we go, look out, now.” She swung around with the kettle and took it to the table to fill the teapot. He followed her and sat down again.

  “I suppose I was a bit jealous of Andy…” she stopped and laughed softly before setting the kettle back on a trivet. “I haven’t called him that in years. It was our little secret. He wanted to have a special name that didn’t belong to anyone else, you know? He asked me to call him Andy. Of course, Paddy called father Andy and then Simon’s little boy was called Andy. You know, I don’t think I ever heard our father call him anything other than ‘lad’ or ‘boyo’. What is that anyway? I thought it was Irish.”

  Nicole rambled on while Mark listened carefully. She came back to the table and sat down. As she prepared three cups of tea with honey and cream, she talked on. “Anyway I guess I was jealous of Andy. He had the opportunity to know our father or, at least, a facsimile of him different from the one we knew as children. You are nothing like him, Daddy. You are the daddy I always wanted. You’re fun and you like me, don’t you?”

  “Of course, I like you, Nicole.” He told her solemnly.

  “And mother. Shhhh.” Nicole shook her head. “She was always worried that Daddy would find out this or Daddy would find out that. I think Meredith was afraid of Mark Andrew. I really do. She tried to hide everything we did from him like she thought he would kill us or something and maybe he would have. I understand more now than then. I just thought he was a grumpy old man at the time, but now I know he wasn’t a man at all.” She looked at him with wonder in her eyes. “And dear old mum? Wasn’t even a woman. How nice. What does that make me? What does that make Andy?”

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head slowly. “What does it make you?”

  “It makes me very sad to think the only good memory I have of my real father is when we danced together at someone’s wedding or birthday or something. I was so proud that he was paying attention to me… just me! Not Meredith, not Lucio Dambretti, but me. And then, when he came to America and told me I had to come home and marry Lucio, I thought that something had changed. Something had changed all right, but it wasn’t his feelings for me. It was his feelings for the Golden Eagle.”