The Wayward Godking

by Brendan Carroll

  “Oh and how do we do that?” She asked. “These things all look the same.”

  “Our thoughts are scattered,” Vanni told them. “We have to concentrate on the same thing. I suggest that we try to think again of Selwig and see if he is asleep now. If not Selwig, then Lavon de Bleu or some other person well known to us.”

  “That’s all well and good, little brother,” Luke balanced his mother across his knee and looked into her face. “I hardly think that mother knows Selwig or Lavon.”

  “And she’s sleeping,” Mark spoke up. “She’s sleeping in the dream fields. Her own dreams may be negating our own efforts.”

  “Aha!” Vanni came close to the sleeping woman. “You may be on to something there.”

  “Let’s wake her up,” Lucio suggested as he joined them and inspected her face as well.

  “No,” Luke veritably moaned. “I dunna want t’ listen t’ ’er any more. I may take drastic action, if she doesna shut up.”

  “Luke!” Merry was shocked. “You’re talking about your mother. That’s a terrible thing to say. If only I had a mother…”

  “Oll roight, oll roight,” Luke sighed. “We’ll wake her.” He sat her up precariously on his knee and prepared to slap her face lightly.

  “No!” Vanni grabbed his hand. “Since she doesn’t know the people we know, then perhaps we should use the people she knows. She’s dreaming… Look.”

  They leaned close and saw that her eyeballs were moving rapidly back and forth under the eyelids.

  “But who do you think she might be dreaming about?” Lucio backed away quickly. “I don’t like the idea.”

  “Who else would she be dreaming of but her beloved John?” Luke looked up at him. “If she’s dreaming about Mark Andrew, then we’ll go where we need to be.”

  “But what if she’s dreaming about Sir Timothy?” Mark asked.

  “I don’t think so…” Vanni closed his eyes and concentrated for several moments. His father looked on curiously. “Mark, what are all these things?” Vanni asked the question and they looked at each other in surprise. “They are called utensils, I believe. Here… I’ll show you. That’s amazing! And this one? Like this. Take the potato so and just draw it over the surface… see? The peel comes right off. No problem. Simple. And this? A beater. If you want to make scones for breakfast, just break a few eggs in a bowl and then stick this end in there like so and turn this crank. Ooops. Hold on tighter… not that tight. Like this. Here. See? Simple.”

  “That’s me brother. Simple. Everything is so simple.” Luke shook his head.

  “Then I suggest we get on with it,” Lucio shook his son out of the trance.

  Vanni snapped out of Lily’s dream and rejoined them.

  “All right. Are we ready?” Vanni asked them. “Take hold of one another and concentrate on Lily.”

  Lucio, Merry, Mark and Vanni locked arms and huddled around Lily and Luke Matthew. Within a few seconds, they had coalesced and collapsed in on themselves, disappearing from the dream fields without a trace.

  Chapter Nine of Twelve

  declare, if thou hast understanding

  “Abaddon, Abaddon!” Ereshkigal leaned over the prostrate form of the dark angel. He lay in a crumpled heap on the stone floor.

  Lord Adar’s phantasms had vanished. Nothing remained of the Scottish meadow in the Seventh Gate. Huber had fought hard and long before Abaddon had subdued her at last. The task had taken a great toll on him and, in the end, Ashmodel and Lucifer had been forced to lend a hand to his efforts. The dark angel had been extremely surprised to see Lucifer fighting at his side. He had let slip his resolve for only a moment and Huber had landed a terrible blow to his back, almost completely shearing off one of his soft leathery wings. A growing pool of dark blood surrounded him as he lay helpless on the stones in the corridor.

  “Let me have a look.” Lucifer knelt beside her. The gash in Abaddon’s back was deep and the rib bones were visible within it. “Ahhh. There is much damage here, my Lady. It is beyond my ability to help. Ashmodel? Can you help him?”

  “Not I, brother,” Ashmodel said sadly. “I am more accustomed to inflicting such wounds than healing them.”

  “My Queen.” Abaddon clutched Ereshkigal’s arm. “Tell Lord Adar that his Gate is free of the evil which has infested it. He can come home.”

  “I’ll tell him. Now just lie still, faithful one.” Ereshkigal laid Abaddon’s head on the stone gently before standing up.

  “We must bring the healer here,” she whispered to her companions.

  “The healer? Selwig?” Lucifer blinked at her.

  “No, no. The Gruguach. That cursed Bridgette.”

  “No, no, no.” Lucifer shook his head. “Do not bring her here. The shock will kill her. She cannot withstand the Abyss.”

  “Then who?” Ereshkigal whispered.

  “You should know, My Queen,” Ashmodel put in as he peeked from behind Lucifer’s shoulder. “One of your former lovers, no doubt?”

  “So! You are as evil as I have heard, Ashmodel! Looks are truly deceiving. When did you go messing about in my personal affairs?”

  “I only know what I have heard, My Queen.” The angel smiled at her and then ducked again.

  “You know of another healer?” Lucifer narrowed his eyes at the queen. “Not one of Uriel’s little brothers, is it?”

  “Blast you both! I would not risk bringing him here,” she turned away from them.

  “You care for him? You care for the Templar Healer?” Ashmodel danced around in front of her.

  “I care for my daughter. He is her father. It is none of my business, really, what comes or goes with him,” she snapped.

  “Then bring him.” Lucifer tossed his hair over his shoulder and knelt beside the dying Abaddon. “We cannot allow our brother to die, if he can be saved. I would have my peace with him before he goes.”

  “A noble sentiment.” Abaddon laughed weakly, startling them. “I am grateful for your assistance, Lord Lucifer. I, for one, did not expect it or deserve for we have both wronged one another with extreme prejudice.”

  “No and nor should you have had it, except that I am a reasonable being,” Lucifer said and then stood up. “You are all disgusting to me. All of this jumping about, hair pulling and gnashing of teeth. And for what? All for the sake of love. Love, love, love. What is wrong with good, raw, unadulterated hatred? It served me well for ages.”

  “But hatred, in and of itself, is boring,” Ashmodel countered. “I have known both love and hatred and between the two, I would…”

  “Shut up! Both of you,” Ereshkigal commanded them. “Wait with him. I will fetch the Healer.”

  She left them alone without further ado. Where she was going, they had no idea, but she did not climb the passage back toward the destroyed meadow. Leviathan would not be there at any rate. The fires of Abaddon and Huber’s struggles had long since caused the great beast to take flight.

  “Helloooo?” A voice called to them from the darkness.

  “Hello?” Ashmodel stood up and sent a spiraling ball of blue luminescence down the tunnel from which the voice emanated. For a moment they could see three figures hurrying toward them.

  “Who is that?” Lucifer asked from where he sat trying to comfort his old enemy.

  “Omar, the Prophet,” Ashmodel whispered to him. “His sister, Dunya, and Lord Marduk.”

  “Ahhh,” Abaddon’s eyes widened, and then he smiled slightly. “My old master will see that I do not suffer overlong.”

  Soon Marduk was leaning over the dark angel, inspecting his wounds with surprising concern.

  “I am no lord of the healing arts,” Marduk pronounced gravely and stood aside as Omar took a turn at examining the slashes on Abaddon’s back. He gently unfolded the wing and then refolded it in a more comfortable position.

  “These wounds are dreadful,” Omar shook his head sadly. “I am sorry, my old friend.”

  “You call me friend?” Abaddon’s voice was exce
edingly weak. “I thought you would kill me, Your Grace.”

  “You still don’t know me very well,” Omar said. “It would be to my great shame to render harm to a creature in need. I will not repay evil with evil.”

  “But I thought you were the great healer,” Dunya spoke up. “Isn’t that what you were famous for?”

  “I am a healer… of men, yes, but I possess no powers where the gods are concerned,” Omar told her. “We are often able to help those smaller than us, and we may render service to those greater than us, but we cannot even heal ourselves. The old taunt ‘Physician, heal thyself’ still carries the same stinging irony as when it was first said.”

  “The Queen went to fetch the Templar Knight of the Serpent, Simon of Grenoble,” Lucifer told them. “If he arrives in time, he may be able to do something here.”

  “Simon of Grenoble?” Marduk frowned. “I doubt he’ll come willingly.”

  “That remains to be seen,” Ashmodel snorted. “The good Queen does not accept no for an answer.”

  1111

  “Have a care there, laddie.” Mark Andrew shoved Lucio aside and caught the bowl before it crashed to the floor. “Ye’ll spoil the batter.”

  Lucio looked around quickly. He was in Mark’s kitchen in Lothian. Lily was standing at the sink, washing dishes in a wooden bucket. An electric percolator burped on Meredith’s yellow and white tiled counter from the apartment above the blacksmith’s shop on the Isle of Ramsay. Luke Matthew sat at the long wooden table and Merry Ramsay was busily making hot chocolate at the old gas stove. The second Mark leaned against the pie safe, drinking from a pitcher of fresh milk.

  “Luke?” Lucio crossed the room quickly and looked at the Knight closely.

  “I see you,” Luke whispered and nodded slowly. “Merry?”

  Merry turned slowly. Her face was a mask of surprise and fear.

  Luke put one finger to his lips and jerked his head for her to come to the table. She picked up the pot of steaming milk and walked slowly toward them. Lucio took the hot pot from her and set it on an iron trivet. A trivet shaped like a dragonfly he remembered from Catharine’s kitchen! The Dove set the pitcher down on the lip of the pie safe and came quietly to join his companions. Mark Andrew was mixing something in a heavy crockery bowl.

  “Rigatoni,” Lucio whispered. “That smells like my rigatoni sauce.”

  “Aye, o’ carse it does,” Mark glanced back at him. “Thot’s because it is your rigatoni sauce. You just made it, did ye not? Pour up the pasta, Brother, and let’s eat. It’s nae poached salmon, but when ye’re starvin’, ye’re starvin’.”

  Lucio looked about in alarm and saw that the pot of hot milk had turned into a pot rigatoni noodles. He picked up the pot and carried it to the sink where Lily handed him a colander to strain off the water. Vanni stood up from where he sat next to Luke Matthew and followed Lucio to the sink. Lily smiled at him, and then he leaned close to his father’s ear.

  “It was not Lily’s dream,” his son told him in a bare whisper. “It was Sir Ramsay’s.”

  “Thair’s nothing loike a poached salmon at th’ end of a ’ard day’s wark. Throw in a few neeps and tatties, and a mon could live roight well,” Mark Andrew spoke again and Lucio looked over his shoulder in time to see the Knight of Death setting a huge platter of baked salmon in the middle of the table. The rigatoni sauce had disappeared. Mark sat down at the head of the table and ordered everyone to sit with him. When they had complied, Lily brought each of them a small plate containing salmon pate molded into the shapes of small fish. Each tray was flanked by five crackers, and the fish was decorated with a sliced, stuffed olive for an eye.

  “Great Scot!” Mark Andrew shoved the plate onto the floor. “We’ll be ’avin’ none o’ thot poison tonight, lassie.”

  He was looking at Merry now, ignoring his mother.

  “How did you get in here?” he asked suddenly and then looked at Luke and Lucio. “How did you get here? Where did you come from?”

  “Mark, be nice to our guests. You know your brother, Luke, and his wife, Merry,” she scolded him as she picked up the broken dish. She took the dish to the sink, and then screamed before falling back from the cabinet.

  All four men were up in an instant. Inside the sink Planxty Grine’s and Stephano Clementi’s heads lay in a splatter of bright red; their lifeless eyes staring up at them briefly before a chorus of male screams filled the kitchen. This led to more screams from the women before they even knew what was wrong.

  Lucio stumbled backwards and fell directly into a roaring campfire. He continued to scream and flail about until strong arms yanked him up. Numerous hands beat him mercilessly, putting out the tiny fires in his clothing. He finished up the process by knocking the remnants of the hot coals and ashes from his boots.

  “Santa Maria!” he shouted, and then realized he was no longer in Mark’s kitchen. He was outside again where a chill wind buffeted his face, blowing the smoke from the campfire in first one direction and then another.

  “Lucio!” Mark Andrew had him by the arms. “Where did you come from?”

  “I was… I was in your kitchen,” the Italian stammered.

  “Ho, Lucius of Venetia,” the Djinni’s familiar voice cut into his confused mind. “Your Highnesses, my royal uncle and aunt. Ho, sons of Adar. Son of the Golden Eagle. Welcome! Welcome! You are looking gracious and lovely, Aunt Merry.”

  A number of familiar voices overran the Djinni’s words and joined the noisy greetings.

  Lucio turned away from the confusing cacophony and found himself looking out to sea. A fresh, salty breeze struck his face, clearing the nightmarish image of his beloved apprentice’s decapitated head from his mind. He heard Lily already admonishing ‘John’ for having abandoned them in their hour of need. He turned again and his eyes focused on the form of the general sitting alone on a small boulder on the other side of the fire. The flames danced higher, while the excited people moved around, embracing one another, asking a million questions of one another.

  Lucio lost all thought and all consideration for his surroundings as he walked slowly toward Ernst Schweikert. The general, surprised by these sudden change in his surroundings, sat watching the melee in confusion. He did not see the Italian draw his sword. Ernst’s head was saved only by Luke Andrew’s intervention, when he literally threw himself on Lucio’s back. Lucio had no thought to his whereabouts when he passed heedless of several shouts of warning on his way to murder the general, who had literally cut out his heart the last time he had seen him.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  Pope Paul VII slammed the small wooden window shutter forcefully; it rebounding off the frame and almost hit him square in the nose. The pontiff emitted a short shriek and stumbled backwards with very little papal grace. They had been sailing, or rather drifting, for weeks without sight of land.

  “How many days, Sergei?” He turned on the Count, who stood staring at him balefully in the light of a flickering oil lamp.

  “Thirty-eight,” the Count told him without thinking and then frowned. “No, thirty nine.” He looked at his gold pocket watch and smiled bitterly. “In fifteen minutes we will be equal to Noah. Forty days and forty nights adrift on the depths of the sea.”

  “Shut up,” Paolo hissed at him as he swept past him down the rickety wooden catwalk that encircled the upper section of the interior of the ark.

  Polunsky followed after him.

  “Your Grace,” the Count’s deep voice echoed in the depths of the boxy ship built by desert Bedouins. “The men are growing weary of goat cheese and dried dates.”

  “They should have packed more food!” The Pope snapped at him. “Do you think I like eating moldy bread and green cheese?”

  “Perhaps you should pray harder,” Sergei said softly and the Pope stopped in his tracks. He turned very slowly and his face turned very dark.

  “If I did not need you, I would excommunicate you and have you tried for heresy!”

  �
��If I did not need you, I would run you through and throw you into the bilge,” Polunsky answered the threat without blinking. “You had best contact your god, Paolo, and ask him for some fresh milk and fruit before the scurvy sets in.”

  “Scurvy? What the hell… I mean, what is scurvy, my son?” The Pope’s tone changed remarkably from his former gesturing and posturing.

  “A very nasty stomach disorder caused from lack of vitamins. It used to plague the sailors and soldiers of old.” Polunsky pulled his last cigar from his pocket and lit it up. “If we do not sight land tomorrow, I think we might have a problem. Some of the men are talking about mutiny, and I think I shall join them. I’m going to smoke my last cigar today and I expect to have another one tomorrow.”

  “Mutiny?! Ha! What would they do? Take over the ship and come up here to look out the window? It’s not as if we have steering or sails or an engine room to take over. That’s ludicrous.”

  The Pope started down the stairs leading to the platforms on which the men were ‘camped’.

  “I am only telling you what is on the wind.” Polunsky smiled slightly. “Looking out the window might be exactly what they want to do. It’s fairly stifling in here. A little fresh air would do them all a bit of good.”

  “The windows are open… I mean, what we can afford,” the Pope looked up at the few rectangles open on the blackness of night. “If we were to be caught in a squall with those ports open, I hate to think what might happen to this creaking crate.”

  “All the same.” Polunsky puffed on the cigar and nodded to his commanders on the ‘command deck’. His officers had taken the upper three platforms and the rest of the men were consigned to the lower levels according to rank. The lower the level, the worse the stench. The air was acrid with the smell of urine and animal dung collecting in the bilge. Not a good arrangement. Morale was non-existent. They had absolutely nothing to do except complain and be miserable. “I hope we find land soon.”