The Perfect Sun

by Brendan Carroll

  “The forty-fourth! Just remind Marduk of the forty-fourth…”

  It was wonderful to hear his voice even it was only a daydream.

  “Just remind Marduk of the forty-fourth…”

  She yelped and snapped her eyes open when something nipped on her big toe and jerked her legs out of the water. Leaning over the pool, squinting into the sparkling ripples, she could see nothing that might have caused the sensation, but when she examined her toe, she was surprised to find it bleeding from a nasty double puncture wound.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  Edgard took Simon into the glassed atrium and closed the door. The refreshing mist of the fountain collected on the Healer’s red face, cooling him and causing his heart to beat less rapidly.

  “You dreamed of the queen mother,” Edgard told him before he could begin to speak.

  “I dreamed of Lydia,” Simon corrected him. “She turned into a horrid monster. Spiders. Millions of spiders. They were all over me. I guess that’s why I ran.”

  “This monster…” Edgard dipped his hand in the basin of the fountain and then looked into the crystal water. “Did it look like that?” He nodded toward the water.

  Simon almost closed his eyes, and then peeked into the bowl with one eye.

  “Oui`,” he nodded and then drew back away from the dreadful sight.

  “That was the queen mother in her true form. I dreamed of her myself.” Edgard hit the surface of the water with his open palm. “The worm has not left us. This may all be her doing. Did she say anything to you?”

  “Before I saw her, when she looked like Lydia, she brought me a baby,” Simon looked away from his father’s intense blue eyes. “It was my son. Jonathan David.”

  “Ahhh.” Edgard smiled slightly. So Simon would name a son after his father.

  “But it was an illusion. It was not a child, only spiders. Baby spiders.”

  “I feared as much. Huber is spawning.” Edgard’s face took on a grim expression. “I thought as much. Mine was a similar vision.”

  “But where is she?” Simon’s voice had all but left him. They would never be able to defend the Villa against such a power.

  “I don’t know.” Edgard looked up through the greenish glass at the bright Italian sun. “We should speak with the Golden Eagle. We’ll have a meeting. Just the Knights.”

  Simon nodded. They needed to discuss their options, if any were to be had.

  “And Meredith?” He asked.

  “And Meredith.”

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  “That is not what I saw in the tree,” Nergal growled in low whisper next to Marduk’s ear.

  “Are you quite sure?” The Lord of the Sixth Gate pushed aside a branch of the mulberry bush and squinted at the strange creature, which was snuffling about under the white pines a few dozen yards away.

  “I’m very sure.” Nergal nodded and grew more emboldened. This fellow wore a quilted gray suit that looked like the lackeys he had seen once in his dreams of Cathay. “Do you know who that is?”

  “I know him.” Nergal nodded and then stood up. He gathered his robe about him and stepped into the open space in front of the bush. “Ba’ alrud! Getsamah! Barashaku!” He spoke the strange words and the creature straightened up quickly, looking in all directions before loping toward them.

  “Master!” The power, who called himself Barshak, stopped and bowed deeply before the two Lords. “I am pleased to find you here.”

  “You didn’t find me,” Marduk corrected him. “Where did you come from? Who summoned you? How did you get here?”

  “I was summoned by a great, dark sorceress. A wonderful creature with hair of gold and eyes like the deepest sapphires in the midst of the earth. Her lips are red and wet like the cherry wine she drinks and her breasts…”

  “Please,” Marduk cut him off. “What is this heavenly child’s name?”

  “Her name is Nicole Ramsay, daughter of Lord Adar, I believe. You are acquainted with Lord Adar?”

  “And you performed services for her?” Marduk asked in fascination. “I have been looking for you. Do you know where the others are?”

  “No, I’ve seen a few here and there. Mostly there,” he said and smiled.

  “I must send you back,” Marduk raised his hands, but Barshak turned and went back the way he had come.

  “You cannot send me back,” the power called over his shoulder. “Nicole Ramsay summoned me, and I am here, or somewhere, at her pleasure. She must send me back. Until then, I am free to roam the world as I please until she needs me.”

  Marduk stood with his mouth hanging open momentarily.

  “Well, what do you think of that?” Nergal began to laugh much to Marduk’s chagrin.

  “I think you had best watch your lips, my friend, or else I will wrap them over the top of your head and tack them to your spine.” Marduk turned on his heel and started back toward the Queen’s meadow.

  “Whatever was following you did not pursue you into my Gate,” Nergal said and followed after him. “I know everything that comes and goes in my gate and…”

  “That is absurd,” Marduk snapped at him. “Your queen had four children and you never even knew about them until after the fact.”

  “That is uncalled for.” Nergal stopped chuckling. “She knows I don’t care for children, and so… she hid them from me.”

  “Exactly,” Marduk snapped, and then fell silent as Sophia hurried toward him across the green.

  “Mr. Marduk!” She stopped in front of him and adjusted the baby on her shoulder. “I have been looking everywhere for you. You must go back and look for the others. Mark Andrew and his brother and the Queen of England.”

  “The Queen of England?” Marduk laughed. “She cares little for me. Why should I care for her?”

  “Because she is the mother of your daughter,” Sophia reminded him and he fell silent. “And are you going to tell me the great Lord Marduk is truly afraid of whatever that thing was? I thought this was your territory down here. Are you Lord Marduk or not?”

  “Ahhh. I forgot.”

  “You see?” Nergal bumped him. “Children? Who needs them? Don’t listen to her, my friend. Come and enjoy this wonderful sauce I have discovered. My wife has roasted lamb and savory stew and fruits and vegetables from the gardens of the world. Crusty brown bread from the elves. Honey and buttermilk. Cold buttermilk.”

  Sophia glared at Nergal.

  Marduk chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully. He felt naked here in the Fifth Gate, as if he was somehow lessened by the presence of the Queen, but he could not put his finger on it. Ereshkigal had never been a problem for him before. In the long, lost past, before she had joined with Nergal, she had been his father’s twin sister and she had treated him quite poorly, but then she had fallen, lost contact with Enki and become enmeshed with the family of Enlil, Enki’s brother. In a sense, she had abandoned her own family and taken up with his father’s worst enemy and brother. His father had never gotten over her loss, and Marduk had thought her subservience to Nergal fitting recompense for the pain she had caused his father. But now many long ages had passed and even Nergal had changed. None of them had seen the Elders in thousands of years. They were forgotten.

  Since that time, Ereshkigal had become one with Nergal in the spiritual and physical sense, but not necessarily, the Biblical sense. Then, along comes Adar and his meddling in the Gates of the disenfranchised…

  “I need to go back,” Marduk said quietly and met Sophia’s gaze. She looked nothing like Menaka, but she was someone’s daughter, and the child she held against her neck was someone’s son. If only he had taken Nergal’s advice when he’d first proposed the idea of having a child of his own. He had been driven by jealousy. Adar had no trouble littering the world with his offspring. Marduk had managed to have only one son and that son was long gone, ages since, destroyed in the coldness of space. Nabu, who taught the ancients the art of writing on clay tablets. Nabu, Crown Prince of Babyl
on. Gone. He had always been jealous of Adar, son of Anu. Anu, his own grandfather! Adar… Uncle Adar! Marduk almost laughed aloud. They were never brothers in the true sense other than being the offspring of the old ones. The forgotten ones.

  “Why?” Nergal was astounded.

  “Galdur must be subdued,” Marduk shrugged. “He is my responsibility.”

  “Responsibility?”

  “Yes. We cannot always expect others to clean up our messes, Nergal. I am inclined to wonder what has become of Lord Adar after all. What would the world be without him? A much duller place, I’ll wager. Besides, was it not one of your acolytes who said ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’?”

  Nergal shook his head in puzzlement. He had never heard that particular line before, but it sounded like good advice.

  “Then you will go?” Sophia was in front of him when he turned.

  “I will go and have a look,” he told her. “Look to yourself and the child,” Marduk admonished her sharply lest she think him weak, and then took Nergal’s arm in an iron grip. “Keep an eye on your Queen, my friend. She may be up to something more than a family gathering. Keep the child safe.”

  “And Luke Andrew? You will look for him? We left him in the caves, remember?” Sophia called after him when he turned to leave them.

  He waved one hand over his shoulder in acknowledgment and kept walking.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  “What do you think?” Louis asked Levi again. The rabbi was checking the Elven king once more for injuries. Finding none, he rose up and shook his head slowly.

  “I think it is simply the atmosphere here,” Levi told the worried group gathered behind him.

  “You’re probably right, little brother,” Oriel agreed and then placed a cool cloth on the elf’s forehead.

  He lay in perfect repose in the midst of one of Ereshkigal’s tables. His hands were crossed over his heart and his face seemed peaceful enough. There were no outward signs of distress. “I remember father once told me the elves could not endure the power of the Abyss for long. I wonder how he came to be here. Mother said she was expecting him…” Oriel raised on tiptoes, looking for her mother.

  “It seems your mother has a great deal more power than I realized,” Louis muttered. “She is bringing everyone here.”

  “But how?” Konrad glanced around. His mother had disappeared shortly after Il Dolce Mio had arrived. “How has she come to have such power? If she had been this powerful all along, I think a great many things would have unfolded differently.”

  “I agree completely.” Louis felt for a pulse on the king’s wrist again. Steady and strong. “Perhaps his system simply shuts down in order to protect him.”

  They were all pushed aside roughly when the pompous Plotius arrived with a small band of his warriors. They grunted and growled and shoved the Knights and clurichauns away from the table.

  “The Queen commands the elf be brought to her bower,” Plotius told them arrogantly. “She will minister to his needs therein.”

  One of the Boggans scooped Il Dolce Mio from the table and threw him over his shoulder. The rest of the Queen’s unhappy guests watched helplessly as the bow-legged beasts jogged away with the king. His long hair bounced as they ran away toward the woods, but no flower petals or little green creatures fell from it in this place.

  “If she is bringing everyone here, then all we need do is wait,” Apolonio sighed and sat down heavily on the bench closing his eyes tiredly. He was tired and bored, and he actually missed Michey. He could almost hear her voice and smell her cologne.

  “Apolonio!” Michey’s voice came clearly to him and he opened his eyes.

  “Michey?!”

  His petite blonde wife stood directly in front of him, looking at him in dismay. Her dark brown eyes were round with fear. Apolonio leapt to his feet and hugged her tightly while the others gathered around them. None of them had seen her coming. It was almost as if she had appeared from thin air. She sobbed against his shirt, asking all sorts of questions none of them could answer.

  Sophia and Nergal returned from her talk with Marduk and sat down at the table with them, practically unnoticed.

  Paddy slid onto the bench next to her and asked to hold the baby. He took the boy and cradled him in the crook of his arm.

  “Now thot’s a chip off th’ old block if evar I did see one,” he smiled at the baby. “I remembar well when Michael Ian was a bairn. This one is quoite th’ little laddie. Andy will be proud o’ this one.”

  “Paddy,” Sophia spoke to him in a low voice. “Lord Marduk has gone back to the Seventh Gate. That’s where Mark is… and his father… and both of his brothers.”

  “Did ’e put them thair? Is this Marduk’s doin’s?”

  “No, sir. I don’t think so.” She looked about but everyone was still talking about Il Dolce Mio and the arrival of Michey von Hetz. “I think it was something much more powerful than that. There was something chasing us in the passages as I said, but there was also something even worse near his mother’s home. Sir Ramsay was trapped for a short time. I don’t know what would have happened if they had not freed him.”

  “Whose mother’s home?” Paddy lowered his voice even more.

  “Andy’s mother, Sir Ramsay…. John Ramsay. John and Lily?” Sophia grimaced. “It’s so confusing.” whose

  “John and Lily? Lily Ramsay?” Paddy dropped his pipe from his mouth, and then quickly covered the baby’s face with the blanket.

  “Yes. Sir Ramsay had a complete replica of his house in Scotland down there. I thought we were in a time warp or something, but it’s all in the Seventh Gate. He had his mother there or at least she thought Mark was her son… well, I mean, he is really her son. It’s Sir Ramsay, the original, she calls John. They were even married, Paddy. At first she was calling my Mark ‘John’ and, then when Sir Ramsay showed up, she called him Mark Andrew, but she called Luke Matthew, Luke Matthew and she called Luke Andrew John Paul and…”

  “Slow down, lassie.” Paddy held up one hand and then gave her son back to her. “Let me get this straight. Just start oll over and go slowly fur Paddy’s auld ears.”

  Sophia sighed and drew a deep breath. This was the first time she’d had to tell anyone the entire story of her sojourn in the Seventh Gate.

  Chapter Fifteen of Sixteen

  and as for darkness, where is the place thereof?

  Mark was surprised and disappointed to find himself still alive and still in the clutches of the Queen Mother when he regained consciousness. He was surprised to be able to open his eyes at all, much less see, but he was disappointed nothing had changed and wondered how long he had been unconscious. Without even trying, he knew he was completely immobilized in the strands of web she had placed around him. Apparently not long, since she still stood near the door of the room. When she turned, however, he had to reassess. She was no longer pregnant. Her stomach was flat and the silken gown clung to her form, shimmering in the light from the hall lamps. She held the purple robe of the Djinni in her human hands while the additional appendages, which had sprung from her back were no longer in evidence, and she looked very much like a normal human woman in the subdued light.

  He watched without speaking as she ransacked the pockets of the robe.

  Huber began to empty the inner pockets, pulling out the roses, the violin, the wine and glasses, and the box of chocolate truffles. She laid these items on the dresser, which was shrouded in the same webbing that held him.

  The queen mother dropped the robe on the floor and picked up the violin, plucking the strings lightly with her long nails. She turned slowly and saw him looking at her.

  “What are these things you bring in your coat, Adar?” She frowned at him. “Such a fine cloak. It is impervious to my web unlike you.”

  “Nothing important,” he answered and was surprised to hear his voice. His face seemed completely free of the stuff.

  “A musical instrument, candy, flowers… wine?�
�� She touched each thing as she identified them. “You were planning to romance someone? I thought your protégé was inclined more in that direction.”

  “My protégé? Who?” Mark tried to focus on the conversation while looking about as far as he could for whatever had issued from her womb. If he could keep her here, occupied, until Luke Matthew had a chance to bring help… if help would agree to come…

  “Dambretti.” She smiled at him, and he felt cold shivers run down his spine. “He was always bringing chocolates and flowers. I think it was because he had a guilty conscience. One of his greatest failings. A conscience. How can one do what one must do if one is continually feeling remorseful? A useless emotion.”

  “But one that is endearing of man to God.”

  “Endearing to God? How would you know? Ahhh,” she said and drew a bit closer to him. “You know because you are what the little ones call a god. I know you, Ninnib, Lord of Saturn called Adar of the mighty hunt. You taught men to hunt, to become the feared predator. You brought them up out of the caves and set them on their way to godhood. All of this is your fault.”

  “Not all of it,” he managed to sound unconcerned. “I had help.”

  “Still, I fail to see the purpose of these things. What good does it serve?” She flipped up the lid on the candy and ran one finger over the smooth surface of one of the truffles. It was slightly sticky in the heat and stuck to her finger. She licked the chocolate and smiled. “Although I did enjoy many of the amenities of the little ones.”