“No, please, don’t go.” Dunya would not let go of him. “Stay here with us, Omar. Father and Grandmother will take care of us. We will be happy again like the old days. I have missed you! My heart yearns for you day and night. When will you come home to me where you belong? We are not of these people, Omar. You and I belong together. You know it is true!”
“Dunya, please, you must go.” He disentangled himself from her arms, and then kissed her impulsively.
He looked down at her in horror, and then closed his eyes.
“Why do you persist in this fantasy, Omar?” She asked him. “You and I are one. We came from the same place. We were together. We belong together.”
“It cannot be so,” he told her. “It is an abomination.”
“Those rules were not meant for us, Omar. Those are the words of the gods of men. You are not a man! When will you admit it? We are not of the same blood. We are not sister and brother. You know this!”
The lightning struck the rocks very near the upper reaches of the palace and sent chunks of debris flying over them. The wind renewed its attack, and bits of ice pelted them.
“Never!” He pushed her back toward the trellis. Their feet slipped and slid on the slick marble and metallic tiles coating the dome.
“You gave it your best try, Omar! You would have been better off staying with Nicole. At least she was like us.”
“No!” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I brought this trouble upon the world, and it is my duty to correct it.”
“You sound like Sir Ramsay! All right then,” she relented and skidded precariously toward the edge of the roof, but stopped again just shy of the trellis leading to safety. “I’ll go on one condition, and I’ll even give you some time before I tell Father where you have gone.” She looked back at him and steadied herself with one hand against the steep slope.
“What is that condition?” He asked her and then flinched as the lightning struck even closer and the hail grew larger and more stinging than before.
“If you succeed, if you come home… you will come home with me to the Hesperides,” she said and blinked against the onslaught of the storm. “Forever.”
He slid over to where she stood and kissed her again on the cheek, holding her chin in his hand for a few seconds as he searched her eyes.
“Swear it!” She shouted at him.
“I swear it!” He answered and then smiled. He knew he would never have to fulfill his oath. He would not be coming back.
“All right then. May the gods be with you,” she said and reached for the trellis. He held her hand while she climbed onto the top of the iron curlicues. When he let go of her hand, she smiled and shouted “I love you, Omar!”
It was the last thing he heard before they were blown from the roof by a violent explosion. A bolt of lightning struck the ornate lightning rod atop the dome, blowing a huge chunk from the metal dome, sending the brother and sister over the edge and out into the night. Omar grabbed her hand and held on with all his might until they struck the cold ocean below the cliff. Then they were sinking in thundering waves and he lost touch with not only his sister, but consciousness altogether for a brief time.
Chapter Two of Twelve
he that reproveth God, let him answer it.
“These things were once here under the chapel.” Simon swept one arm around the torch lit room. “My father and the Ritter collected them from all over the world.”
Mark Andrew was amazed. Many of the artifacts in the store rooms below the Villa’s chapel were the same artifacts he had collected himself in another reality. He’d never come to these rooms before. This had been the sanctuary and business of the Order’s priests and chaplains.
“Whoever set this place up, used memories, plans or blueprints from a past age, before the eruption that buried the Villa,” Simon continued. “Everything is still here. I was surprised to see them to say the least, and I assumed we had either entered a time distortion, or else we were all dead and dreaming. After I got over the initial shock of being trapped here… by the way, when you see Meredith again, please relay my appreciation to her. She saved me from myself once again,” he ducked his head slightly and then pulled a velvet cloth from a golden cask. “After I gathered my wits and counted my blessings, I began to explore the Villa, looking for clues or anything we could use to help solve this mystery. I found these things and began to examine them in depth. This…” he opened the cask and lifted out a smooth, oblong orb of amber colored crystal. “… is something very similar to the orb atop my father’s baculus.”
Mark watched in fascination as the Healer removed a golden stand from the cask and set the stone in the ornate circle made to look like four pairs of human hands.
“A crystal ball?” Mark asked and then walked around it slowly. “I have seen many of these things. They are nothing. Just oddities and amusements.”
“Not all of them,” Simon shook his head minutely. “This one belonged to Solomon, the Wise.”
Mark’s mouth fell open slightly.
“It was buried beneath the Temple in Jerusalem alongside the Ark of the Covenant. The founding fathers of the Order, my father included, dug them out and transported them out of the Holy Lands to the Languedoc during the crusades.”
“Ahhh, so Edgard told you about Hugh de Payans? Did he tell you about Ambrosius?” Mark’s eyes twinkled. He had been the one who had found the artifacts under the Temple not de Payans.
“Yes, he told me he had used the name himself from time to time, but no, he did not mention anyone called Ambrosius.”
“Hmmph. It figures. So, does it work?” Mark placed one hand on the orb and then jumped back as static electricity snapped up to his elbow.
“Quite well.” Simon nodded and stared at the crystal, which glowed of its own accord after the contact with the Knight’s hand. “I did not tell my father about it… that it was here, I mean. He is changed, and I cannot think of him as my father any longer.”
Mark nodded. He could understand that. Simon could no more accept Edgard as his father than Luke Matthew could accept himself as his father. The curse of immortality. Edgard looked even younger than Simon at the moment. The only reason Simon’s sons accepted their ‘Poppi’ without question was because he had actually raised them from infancy and never left them. They had grown larger and older than their father, but it had been a gradual thing, and the Order was ever in front of them, guiding them, whereas Simon and Luke Matthew had grown up under very different circumstances.
“What have you learned?” Mark asked him.
“I have seen things here I cannot describe.” Simon admitted as if confessing and looked up at the Knight. “Wonderful things. Horrible things. I know now what Michel de Nostradame felt like. I saw you in the Seventh Gate, Brother.”
“When?”
“I would assume recently, judging from your appearance when you arrived here,” Simon murmured and looked away from him. “I saw you were in trouble.”
“With Huber,” Mark said. “It is regrettable we are never far from prying eyes, be they willing or no.”
“I did not mean to pry, Brother.” Simon snapped his head up. “I am trying to help us. I am not here to judge you. I did not bring you here to tell you this. I know why you did what you did. Forgive me, but I could not turn away. I tried to use my powers to help you. For all we know, and for my own vanity I hope, you may be here because of my attempt to intervene. But be that as it may, you are here and you are safe for a time. I saw something more even more interesting if you can believe it. I saw a strange sight. I saw Konrad and King Louis and Konrad’s son, Apolonio together at a picnic. I saw Christopher Stewart and Armand de Bleu and two angels in a star ship. I saw a great monster floating in a pool and I saw my daughter-in-law fishing on a pretty little bridge. I saw a beautiful meadow set up for a festive gathering and I saw Queen Ereshkigal’s Captain Plotius riding a white horse, leading a band of his Boggans. I saw Paddy Puffingtowne and his cousins playing
music and I saw my daughter, Oriel and she is safe.”
“That’s all good news. Did you see Luke Matthew or Luke Andrew? Queen Merry? Did you see Sophia or Mark?”
“I saw Sophia and her child in the meadow.”
Simon fell silent and placed both hands on the orb.
“What else did you see, Simon?” Mark asked, but did not want to hear the answer.
“I saw the Pope… dead. I saw his death.” Simon’s expression changed. “Gambrelli killed him. Murdered him. Gambrelli is Pope now, and he and Polunsky and a few of his cronies are on the march again. They are headed into the land of the Zoroastrians. They are looking for something.”
“They will find nothing.” Mark shrugged. “Huber told me that the world is melting.”
Simon’s face turned completely white in the dim light.
“Did you see this? Do you know what she is talking about?” Mark urged him to speak.
“I saw the earth from the moon, Brother.” Simon looked up at him. “It is just as Nostradamus told. Great fires fell from the sky and the land was burned up. The earth turned to liquid and the seas boiled away into space. The surface of the earth looked like the surface of the moon. There was no air, no water, nothing living remained.”
“It has happened before,” Mark told him. “It will happen again, but it’s not Huber who can bring it about. Only an elder god could cause such destruction.”
“Then we have problems.” Simon told him evenly. “Gambrelli has awakened the elder god. He summoned Yahweh just as Job summoned him. I saw it. It was… hard.”
“Gambrelli summoned God?!” Mark was aghast.
“He did.” Simon covered the stone with the velvet cloth he still clutched.
“And God spoke with him?”
“He did.”
“And what did they talk about?” He whispered the question.
“Gambrelli promised to return the Ark to him and build him a new Temple in Rome,” Simon said. “Gambrelli would be the new Abraham and in return, God would build a new race to worship him with Gambrelli as patriarch.”
“Good God!” Mark sat down on wooden chest.
“No, not good God.” Simon sat down heavily next to him. “Jealous God.”
“But if the world is melting, then where would Gambrelli… how would Gambrelli survive? Much less engender a new race?”
“Some of the things I see in this stone have not yet come to pass,” Simon told him. “It is impossible to know what is past, future or present, until more evidence is gathered. If Gambrelli has the nerve to summon God and offer to make deals with Him, then perhaps he could answer those questions.”
“Then it would seem we are all in the Abyss and it is possible… God put us here.”
“Gambrelli will not be able to find the Ark,” Simon reminded him. “We threw the Ark in the furnace of Jethro.”
“That does not mean it is irretrievable. It just means it is down here with us somewhere,” Mark said and looked about the room as if searching for the relic. “If Gambrelli is working under Yahweh’s guidance and in his good graces, then surely he might be able to find it.”
Simon nodded and Mark stood up.
“Let me look in this thing,” he pulled the velvet cover from the stone. “Show me how it works, Little Brother.”
(((((((((((((
“The court will adjourn for thirty-seven glimmers, while the Lord takes counsel in his sanctum,” the droning voice of the mysterious ‘bailiff’ filled the cavern. “The Lord Ramsay of Lothian will accompany the Lord Judge at this time.”
Mark got up and Lily held onto his hand until he pulled away from her and followed Lord Kinmalla into the glowing chamber off to the right of his ‘bench’. Marduk had persuaded Kinmalla to allow Mark to speak to him on Meredith’s behalf. The Lord Kinmalla had agreed to listen to him before pronouncing judgment on her for her crimes, which he had pronounced her guilty of without hesitation or preamble. There had been no real trial. No evidence presented, no testimony taken. Nothing. Just a list of crimes and a declaration of guilt.
Marduk exited the chamber immediately and sought his unlikely friend, Zaguri, for more reports on Huber’s activities. The creature had returned from his second foray to the shrouded house. Still no sign of Mark Andrew. Huber was inside the house or lair, as it were, tending her young. Adar’s absence had given her a fit at first, but she had calmed herself after a bit and was now seeing to a second brood in the attic. Zaguri wanted to rip the nest apart, eat all of the spiderlings and confront the Queen Mother, quite sure of his ability to defeat her in single combat, but Marduk had forbade him to do anything more than observe her. Marduk was not so sure even the mighty Zaguri would fare well against the power of Huber.
Meredith left her brother-in-law and son inside the chamber with Lily and Merry and sought the company of Marduk. At least, they had something in common. She felt very ill at ease in the same room with Lily and Merry, and she had no intention of pretending to be Nicole.
“Meredith,” Marduk said quietly and came to take her hands after dispatching Zaguri on yet another reconnoitering mission. “Please, sit with me.”
The full moon broke through the raft of clouds, lining the meadow with silver, stretching away in all directions. A beautiful night full of bird calls and the chirps of insects. The distant sound of a fox barking added to the illusion. They sat down in the grass, facing each other like teenagers.
“I’m sure something can be done about Kinmalla,” he told her without conviction. “For every turn of events, there is another turn in the making. Your Adar is a most resilient fellow. He will have his own ideas, I’m sure. Whatever comes to pass here will have secondary consequences. We will mediate, of course.”
“We?” She smiled at him sadly. “Who will mediate? Who will be left? You will receive your punishment. Luke Andrew will have his and the rest of them, eventually. We will be consigned to the Gates again, or worse, and the world will go to hell in a handbasket while we linger and, languish in prison.”
“Now, that is not true,” he told her adamantly. “We’ve been in prison before and the world still stands. We are all expendable. You know that.”
“I suppose you are right,” she said. She would never have believed she would be sitting in a moonlit meadow with the Lord of the Sixth Gate.
“Meredith, there is something I would like to say to you.” He looked up at the moon, and then smiled at her. For the first time, she realized he was not as horribly ugly as she had always remembered. It had been the circumstances surrounding their relationship that had made him seem a monster to her. “I would like to say I regret deeply the nature of our dealings with one another over the years. I treated you unfairly.”
“I think perhaps you should apologize to Merry rather than me,” she sniffed and raised one eyebrow. “For that matter, I should apologize to her as well. It was no doubt, partly my fault you transferred your feelings for me to her.”
“Yes, well, that is all water under the bridge,” he said. “Who can predict the whims of man? It is not so simple as it was in the days of old. If I fancied the company of a woman, she did not have much say in the matter, but I have to say, those who came into my house had very little reason to complain. I was not a monster, Meredith, at least I never meant to be.”
“I know, I know, you were lonely,” she put words in his mouth.
“I was not lonely,” he said indignantly. “I was in need of companionship of the feminine sort. It is always a fine diversion to spend a bit of time away from the cares and woes of the world in the arms of a beautiful woman. I think you understand this more than you care to admit.”
“That works both ways, yes.” She nodded. “So you have made a number of mortal women extremely happy, have you? Where are they now?”
“Gone.” He shrugged slightly. “I did not possess the Key of Life and of Death, my dear. That was your Lord Adar. He was the one who was always unwilling to let go.”
�
��I accept your apologies, Lord Marduk,” she said. “I just hope you are right about the rest of this. Here we are being sentenced to prison, while Huber musters her armies to destroy the world. Seems a bit ironic to me.”
“Irony is the key word of my life.”
Merry got up quickly when Mark emerged from the mouth of the cave. He headed straight for her.
“Meredith.” Marduk took her hand and kissed it lightly. “I may have been terribly brutal with you, and I may have went about wooing you in an unorthodox manner, but please remember I am a product of my times. In my own way, I still love you, and if it means anything at all, I will give my best efforts to see you do not suffer unnecessarily.”
“So you think some suffering might be necessary?” She raised both eyebrows, but smiled.
“I think we have both overstepped our bounds, and we must pay sooner or later.” He stood up beside her and then left her with the Dove.
“Meredith,” Mark said nervously and stopped in front of her, licking his lips. “I wish I had good news for you, but the judge is very hard. He has his rules. I don’t know what they might be or how to defend you properly. I did my best to make sure he understands the spirit in which you acted. He seems to understand the terms love and altruism, but he is very adamant about affairs of humanity and affairs of the gods and how the two do not mix… at least on the physical plane.”
“I’m sure you did your best,” she told him.
“I wanted to say something to you on my father’s behalf, since he is not here to speak with you personally.” He took her hand and led her toward the rocks near the mouth of the cave. They sat down on the boulders and looked out over the meadow instead of facing each other. “This might be as difficult to say as it is to hear.” Mark cleared his throat
“The perfect end to the perfect day,” she sighed and plucked a tuft of grass from a crevice in the rocks.
“I am not a judge, and I know nothing of the laws governing the angels, but I can see clearly why my father loves you so. You are all extremes. Guilty and innocent. Ignorant and wise. Young and old. Warm and cool. You embody all the elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Together in you, he found them, and with love as the agent, he created his own Philosopher’s Stone, his personal Quintessence, the Fifth Element. You are his curse and his cure in one. And he will always love you best of all in this Universe.”
The Wayward Godking Page 3