The matron sighed at her own unorthodox behavior. Consecrated Brides weren’t supposed to communicate with God directly. They were to receive divine instruction from their husbands instead. This rule applied even more strongly in her own case given that her husband was the Lord’s prophet. Nevertheless, she remained convinced of the propriety of her conduct. God had spoken to her personally and He surely expected her to answer His call the same way.
She glanced about her. The chapel could seat no more than fifty souls. It was only used for weddings, baptisms, or funerals and was restricted to the immediate family of the participants. She walked to the front pew and sat down. Gazing up at the pulpit, she thought back to the many stirring orations her husband had given here. During those times, her pride in Abraham had only been exceeded by her pride of place as his principal wife. Mother Rachel’s preeminence within the Blessed Nephilim had endured for decades. She never doubted that her rank in the celestial kingdoms would be likewise exalted.
But her husband’s days of glory were past. Abraham was no longer the decisive leader he had once been. Of late, his sermons had become disjointed and rambling. He tired so easily now. Instead of an hour-long discourse he could barely manage fifteen minutes before growing short of breath. He needed help descending from the lectern. While these symptoms were perfectly common with the onset of age, his decline had been shockingly rapid.
It all began when his youngest wife Hannah fled the compound and took refuge among the Fallen. That single act of betrayal shook Abraham’s confidence to the core. The rest of the congregation was initially oblivious to the change but Mother Rachel perceived her husband’s waning physical strength and his slackened moral leadership. Though she could clearly see his deterioration, the matron felt helpless to stop it.
Then an opportunity presented itself. Mother Rachel leaped at the chance to reach out to Sister Hannah per her husband’s command. Perhaps all was not lost. If the matron could carry the words of the Lord to the heart of this wayward girl she might repent her folly. Once restored to Abraham’s embrace, Hannah in turn might restore him to his former vigor.
But this happy ending was not to be. Mother Rachel had prayed daily for Sister Hannah’s repentance. She had read her the Bible during every visit and then the prophecies of Jedediah Proctor and the sermons of former diviners. The matron had reprimanded and rebuked and cajoled but the girl remained unmoved. Mother Rachel began to wonder if Hannah might be deaf as well as mute. Always the same dull expression on her face no matter what tactic was tried. She gave no sign that she heard or understood the spiritual care being lavished upon her.
Perhaps it was something darker than ignorance that motivated Sister Hannah’s behavior. She seemed to possess an unnatural power over Abraham. Everyone saw it. The girl had taken a once-strong man and reduced him to a quivering lump of mortal frailty. He seemed unable to function without her. And if he failed to lead, the Brotherhood would fail to follow. Without their shepherd, the flock of the Blessed Nephilim might easily be led astray into sinful pastures. Surely this was the devil’s work. As it was in the beginning, the serpent wrought the fall of the righteous through a scheming woman.
Ironically, Mother Rachel was the only person who could see it happening. Only she recognized her husband’s obsession. Only she had witnessed Hannah’s obstinacy. Only she seemed to grasp the disastrous consequences for the Blessed Nephilim. And now, she had come to the blinding realization that she was the only one who could avert it. Why else had the Lord granted her a nightmare vision of the hereafter? It was a warning that only she could interpret rightly.
The matron fell to her knees and whispered a prayer for guidance. This was a grave matter and she was nothing more than a corrupt daughter of Eve herself. Almost immediately, an answer came from beyond. God was mightily offended with his Diviner. His wrath could only be averted if a fit sacrifice was offered. Mother Rachel cast about in her mind to understand what the Lord would consider an appropriate offering.
Absently, she raised her eyes to the cross affixed to the chapel wall. Another revelation struck her. When mankind had offended God in olden times, the Lord’s own son shed His blood that all sins might be forgiven. Of course, it made perfect sense. A sin as great as Abraham’s could only be washed away with blood atonement. That was surely what the Lord wanted her to do. At first, she recoiled from the idea until she remembered another Abraham ready to slaughter his son Isaac at the Lord’s decree.
She bowed her head over her hands. “Lord, I am your faithful handmaiden. I hear and obey.”
Mother Rachel rose from her knees and walked slowly toward the back of the chapel. She had been given clear instructions what to do next. If she shrank from her duty at this critical moment, then she was no better than the Fallen who roasted in hell. God’s will was obvious. She must perform the sacrifice with her own hand. Perhaps if enough blood flowed, the Lord would forget his wrath against the Blessed Nephilim. It was up to her to save them all.
Chapter 27—Ritual Slaughter
The following afternoon, rested and as clean as a train without showers would allow, Cassie and Olga entered the Trans-Siberian’s wood-paneled dining car to meet their teammates for lunch. The opulent decor carried a hint of the glory days of rail travel. The car’s luxurious interior and high prices also discouraged the presence of boisterous third class passengers who preferred to buy their provisions from station vendors.
Cassie scanned the length of the car to see if the men had already arrived. She spied Griffin signaling her from a table in the middle of the carriage. Daniel didn’t look up at their approach. He was immersed in his menu.
“Did you sleep well?” Olga asked solicitously as she and Cassie took seats opposite their colleagues.
“Absolutely,” the Scrivener assured her. “Thank you so much for arranging our passage.”
“I was happy to be of help on such an important mission,” the scout replied.
A waitress arrived with a silver carafe of coffee and poured four cups while everyone surveyed the bill of fare.
“Even with the English translations, I’m not sure what to order.” The Scion eyed Olga helplessly.
“If I can suggest,” the scout began. “The menu is big but they run out of things all the time. It is best to choose the most popular dishes because they stock more of them. If you want a light meal, borscht is a traditional Russian soup made with cabbage and beets. If you want something that combines breakfast and lunch, the thin pancakes stuffed with smoked salmon are very good. They’re like... What is the word?”
“Blintzes?” Griffin offered helpfully.
Olga shook her head. “No, crepes. Or if you prefer, there is always the traditional Russian breakfast of fried eggs and ham.”
Cassie chuckled. “That’s a traditional American breakfast too.”
It didn’t take much arm-twisting for everyone to fall in line with one or another of the scout’s recommendations.
Olga gave their order in Russian to the waitress. As an aside to her companions, she said, “Some people think that all we eat here is caviar and that we drink vodka all the time.” She laughed ruefully. “Maybe the vodka part is true but only because water used to be unsafe in many places. Be careful if somebody offers you a glass of vodka. It is very impolite to refuse. Before you know it, you are drunk.”
Daniel appeared horrified by the possibility.
“No need for alarm.” Griffin’s tone was droll. “Simply avoid eye contact with Russians carrying vodka bottles.”
The Scion gave a thin smile. Transferring his attention to the countryside beyond the train window, he changed the subject. “Where are we, exactly?”
Olga consulted her watch. “Right now we are traveling north toward Khabarovsk. After we get there, the train will turn west and follow the Amur River.”
“Good,” Cassie said. “Once we’re close to the river, I might be able to get a bead on the Minoans.” She swallowed an entire cup of coffee in three gulps
and turned to signal the waitress to bring more.
Olga gaped at her in surprise.
“Our Pythia finds long-distance travel very disorienting,” Griffin explained. “Coffee helps her stay alert.”
“Yes, yes.” The scout nodded sagely. “It must be hard for a person who travels in unseen worlds as well as this one. Very easy to lose the way.” She motioned the waitress over and said a few words in Russian.
The waitress fetched a fresh carafe and poured Cassie a second cup. Then, with a knowing smile, she left the pot in the middle of the table.
“She will bring more if you need it,” Olga said.
Everyone laughed at the Pythia’s stunned expression. “If I drink all that, I’ll run laps around the train.”
“Then allow us to help you.” Griffin topped off his cup and the other two. Directing his attention to Olga, he said, “The Jomon trove-keeper told us that Lake Baikal is the source of three hundred rivers. I’m wondering if it also holds some spiritual significance which might have appealed to the Minoans.”
“There is no holier place in all of Siberia than Lake Baikal,” the scout informed him. “It is the ancestral homeland of the Buryat tribe. The lake is believed to be the birthplace of shamanism.”
“Why would shamanism have mattered to the Minoans?” Daniel challenged.
Olga didn’t seem offended by the question. “It is the world’s oldest religion—a reverence for the spirit power of all life. A long time ago, people could feel the invisible energies surrounding them. Their shamans could do even more than that. These magic-workers could reach beyond the senses for deeper truths. They could perform healings and reveal secret knowledge to others. Although ‘shaman’ is a Siberian word which means ‘one who can see in the darkness’ such people have existed in every land since the beginning of human times.”
“But the Minoans were matristic,” the Scion insisted. “It’s unlikely they would have entrusted their most precious goddess relic to a shaman.”
Olga furrowed her brows, taking a few moments to process the comment. “You think the ancient shamans were men?”
“Of course,” Daniel retorted. “That’s what all the history books say.”
“You mean overlord history books?” Griffin asked pointedly.
“The overlord history books that Alma Jones would have clubbed you with if she had any handy?” Cassie kidded him gently.
“Oh.” The Scion blushed with embarrassment. “Please continue, Olga. I’m sorry I interrupted you.”
The scout complied. “Of course, the overlords do not like the idea that women ever wielded spiritual authority so they changed the story.” She waved her hand dismissively. “They can spread lies in their little books but they cannot change the truth buried with the bones. The earliest shaman grave found in Europe dates from 31,000 years ago and it was the grave of a female. Among the Siberian people, each tribe has a different word for a male shaman but they all use the same word to describe a female shaman. This means the earliest shamans were women. When myths tell of the first shaman, they always speak of a female. In many places, male shamans dress as females in order to perform ceremonies. There is a saying in this part of the world: ‘a woman is by nature a shaman.’ It explains why female shaman training is so much quicker and easier than a man’s. She already knows what he must spend time learning.”
A look of gloom crossed Olga’s face. “When the overlords invaded here, they persecuted shamans. It started with the Buddhist monks from Tibet—the Lamaists. They conspired with the Mongolian emperor and declared him to be the reincarnation of Genghis Khan to strengthen his claim to the throne. In exchange, he made Lamaism the state religion. On pain of death, shamans were forbidden to practice their rituals. They were still being burned alive by Buddhists as recently as the beginning of the twentieth century.”
“That isn’t so very different from what happened in Europe during the height of the witch craze,” Griffin remarked. “Shamans and witches both work within a local community. In Europe, these practitioners undermined the spiritual authority of the Catholic Church. As we all know, overlord state religion and politics go hand in hand.”
The scout continued. “Once religion was abolished by the Soviets you would think such persecution would have come to an end. But it did not. The Soviets feared the people of Siberia would never be loyal to the state as long as shamans held influence in the villages and towns. So the persecutions continued. Shamans who practiced public rituals had their tongues cut out and were sent to gulags. Some were murdered.”
Olga smiled bleakly at her listeners. “At least the story has a happy ending. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, shamans everywhere have come out of hiding. Even though much of their sacred history has been destroyed, they perform rituals openly again. Some have even founded alternative healing centers. There are many shamans on the western shore of Lake Baikal. The eastern shore was taken over by the Lamaists long ago. The people are mostly Buddhists on that side.”
“So you think the Minoans may have entrusted the Sage Stone to a shaman somewhere near the lake?” Daniel asked. “Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t Lake Baikal as big as our Lake Michigan?”
“Not as big in terms of surface area,” Griffin chimed in. “But it is longer. Lake Baikal measures four hundred miles from end-to-end. It is the oldest, deepest lake in the world. By volume, it contains more water than all of the Great Lakes combined and is the largest fresh water source on the entire planet.”
“That certainly seems like a huge area to search.” The Scion sounded dismayed.
“Oh, I think it will not be so bad,” Olga countered. “There is a place halfway up the western shore that has been considered sacred for thousands of years. We will go to Olkhon Island first—to Shaman Rock.”
“You seem to know a lot about the area,” Cassie remarked.
The scout shrugged. “I should. My family lives there. My mother is Buryat and my father is from Belarus.”
At that moment, their orders arrived and everyone transferred their attention to their food.
Olga offered one final bit of advice as she picked up her fork. “You should rest as much as you can while we are on the train. Arriving in Irkutsk will only mark the beginning of our journey.”
Chapter 28—Fresh Targets
Leroy Hunt stood behind Metcalf and observed his employer fire several bullets at a target hanging ten feet away. The shots all clustered neatly around the heart.
“You come a long way, boss,” the cowboy said approvingly.
Metcalf lowered his weapon and assessed his handiwork. “With your help, Mr. Hunt.”
Leroy thought back wryly to the previous week when they’d first started training. It had taken some wrangling to get the preacher to choose a gun he could actually manage. The old coot could barely stand on his own two feet yet he was hankering to shoot a hand cannon. Metcalf demanded a Smith & Wesson 500 Magnum. The cowboy did his best to keep from laughing in the old man’s face but he let him try it just to prove a point. The recoil from the first shot nearly snapped the preacher’s wrist off and knocked him ass over teakettle. After that humiliating experience, he was ready to listen to reason.
As Hunt astutely pointed out, Metcalf didn’t need a gun that could stop a charging rhino. He needed something small and light that could do damage at close range. They eventually settled on a low recoil pocket pistol weighing less than two pounds. The addition of a laser sight made it easy enough for even a feeble old man to hit what he was aiming at. After a week of daily practice, Metcalf was now a competent enough marksman with his pea shooter to continue training on his own.
“You given any thought to who you might be aimin’ that gun at?” Leroy hinted delicately.
His question was met with a frosty glare. “You’re alluding to my son Joshua?”
“Yessir. Like I told you before, that boy’s trouble with a capital ‘T’. Do yourself a favor and snuff him before he snuffs you.”
The pr
eacher shook his head. “Not yet, Mr. Hunt. My son has made no move to harm me. Besides...” He trailed off, apparently hesitating about how much information to share. “Joshua is still useful. He’s performing certain confidential tasks which can’t be entrusted to anyone else. The day may come when he outlives his purpose. Then I’ll decide what must be done.”
Leroy grunted his assent, still not convinced that a “wait and see” attitude was the best course to take.
The old man hobbled over to a seat behind the trainer’s desk.
Hunt followed and sat himself down in the visitor’s chair. He was eager to get back to his primary mission of finding Mr. Big’s lair. “I expect you won’t need me here every day no more,” he ventured. “Time I went back to tailin’ that kid full time.”
“Have you made any progress in that direction?” Metcalf asked.
“A mite,” Leroy admitted. “Every day after we finish up here, I been drivin’ out to the boy’s house but he ain’t never around.”
Metcalf frowned. “So you haven’t been able to determine where he goes?”
“No sir, I ain’t yet cause I been trainin’ you every mornin’.” The cowboy’s tone held a note of reproach. “I did manage to chat up one of his buddies on Friday though. Turns out the kid took a summer job someplace. He wouldn’t tell nobody where he was goin’ or what he was doin’. That sounded fishy to me so’s I figure he’s doin’ odd jobs for Mr. Big. Tomorrow I’ll be at the kid’s house before first light so I can follow him out.”
“That’s an excellent idea,” Metcalf concurred, “but it will have to wait.”
“What now?” Leroy couldn’t keep the edge out of his voice. He felt like a bloodhound that had been abruptly hauled off the scent.
“I have a more urgent matter for you to handle.”
“Boss, I can’t fathom what’s more important than shuttin’ down Mr. Big.”
“I fear Doctor Aboud is talking to people he shouldn’t.”
The Sage Stone Prophecy (Arkana Archaeology Adventure Series Book 7) Page 16