King of the Dark Mountain

by Galili Black

  This took the better portion of an hour. They had to direct all their will to the image of causing it to move into a dark pit somewhere outside of their world. Noelle knew where this was, and they followed her lead. The child they had always considered a mite peculiar now showed herself to them in her true form as a wonderfully wise person. Her mother understood now that all her child’s singular habits were in preparation for this moment. Her heart was filled with the great combination of humility and pride peculiar to mothers. The glimmering light enhanced this to the point of almost unendurable beauty. She managed to stand near her daughter on the platform below and help her guide the crowd’s mind to cleaning up the horror on the south side of Harrow.

  In the days and weeks that followed, groups of people met together at the site of the former mountain. They were able to lift great boulders and shape them into forms that were like giant petals. After a time these numbered in the hundreds and wrapped around the four levels to create what someone called “a lotus with a thousand petals.” Others thought it was more like a giant rose. Once the boulders were in place, they began to shimmer with a light that made the site visible from a great distance. It was particularly lovely at night. People started to come from miles around to see this thing that the people of Harrow Mountain had made.

  Usually the visitors were gifted with the sparks of light which would well up from the center where Noelle had stood to bring forth the wonders. This in turn caused them to extend the miracle of rebirth to their own communities. Even where there was no egregious environmental affliction such as had been perpetrated upon Harrow, other secret wounds were healed. These were sometimes natural, but more often some hidden sickness afflicting the hearts of human beings and they were made better by the creative flow coming out of the center of Harrow.

  This worked its way over time all the way up and down the whole chain of mountains to which Harrow belonged. Though lighted already by the initial burst of energy brought down, this second anointing of the light created a particularly potent and protective force. All the ravaged mountains in the range were made into memorials for healing, though none were as potent as the original. This was due to the fact that Harrow had been the anchor for the initial flowing forth of the light,

  Some of the people from Harrow journeyed across the land and lighted the Rockies, and others went south to the Andes. It was discovered that any ordinary pebble left in the proximity of the site would become imbued after several days with the power of the creation light. It was more difficult to carry the energy across the oceans, but it was a task taken on by some. It was learned that specially designed containers were needed to protect the energy, if it was taken over large bodies of water. These were made by a local craftsperson who said she had been led to the spot where pure white clay could be found to make them.

  The general consensus was that it would take many years to light all the mountains on the planet, though some thought this might not be the case due to reports that some sites seemed to have the ability to expand the energy farther and with more force than anything seen in the New World. As the mountains of the earth were lit, they radiated out to the surrounding countryside and beyond, so that a significant shift in energy began to be felt everywhere. It was scarcely spoken of or written about directly, partly because it was experienced in such a personal way.

  The single exception to this transformation of the Earth’s mountains was the spur off the Ural Mountains which remained immune to the process. Those mountains were mainly kept off limits to the public and rumors spread that some malignant organization was still at work there in an underground facility. Those mountains began to be shrouded in heavy dark clouds and the surrounding countryside began to be abandoned. Because of this, they began to be called the dark mountains by everyone.

  There were rumors of strange creatures carrying off farm animals and crops would no longer grow. As the de-population continued, an oozing swamp began to extend out over the landscape. Different groups of people tried to bring the creation light into the area, but to no avail. A different light, oily and sullen began to illuminate the mountains which had once been intended for the initial calling down of the energy. At night, they shone in a putrid greenish way, their light reflected in the polluted wetlands for miles around.

  *

  Hezekiah tried to give Ted as much information about the Kadistan site as he could, in the few days he remained in New Hampshire after their return from Harrow Mountain. Ellie was getting stronger, but he still wanted to give her a few days to recover before the long drive home. He had found his truck where he had left it parked, the rosemary plant wilted but not beyond recovery. Richard and Samantha had left quickly after Richard’s return, to be with their kids. “I may have to pay them a visit so I can get Richard’s take on the time he spent in the Kadistan facility,” Ted said to Hez after he had completed their last interview.

  “You ought to come down and visit us on the farm sometime,” Hez replied.

  “Perhaps I shall, when Irena gets better. It will depend on if she wants to come along. I mean to make that my main priority for all future projects.”

  Sounds like a good plan to me,” Hez replied. “I guess we all have learned some lessons about priorities. Which reminds me, I need to go check on Ellie.” He went upstairs and found her sitting up in bed with pages spread out over the covers.

  “I’m just finishing up some notes for Ted. He’s always the one keen to document everything,” she said.

  “Good thing someone is writing it all down for posterity. After all, it’s only ten thousand years before the power from Orion rains down again,” he laughed.

  “Wonder what the world will be like by then,” she said thoughtfully. Her color was still a little off and the thoughtful expression which accompanied this remark made her seem ethereal

  “I’ll be glad when we get home,” Hez said, feeling uneasy about her appearance. “I might be able to salvage some of the tomatoes and all of the corn, if we get going soon.”

  “I say we leave early tomorrow,” she replied. He nodded and the next morning they got up very early. There was an emotional farewell with Ted, and then Hez drove all the way home, scarcely stopping along the way. They got back near dawn and Hez took it as a good sign that the sun was rising over the eastern pasture just as they pulled into their home driveway. When they stepped out of the truck, a large elk emerged into the clearing from the patch of woods beyond. Ellie slipped her arm around her brother’s waist and they stood and gazed at it until it disappeared into the woods again.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Wainscott Chapman stood in front of a full length portrait of one of the Stuart kings. His father had received it as a gift from a recent reigning monarch. He loathed the picture because it reminded him of his father, a wastrel who had run through a substantial portion of the family inheritance. It had taken him an equally good portion of his own youth to get it back. He had managed this through shutting down non-productive assets that the old man held some silly sentimental attachment for.

  He had once admitted in one of his frequent drunken diatribes on the subject that they were actually descended from some Welsh coalminer and so the mines in that area must not be sold. It was nonsense of course, although looking at his elder’s besotted face, he could well imagine some connection of that sort. The old man often bragged about how he, alone of all his cohorts refused to bring in strike breakers, back in the day when the miners were always striking for better working conditions. Looking now at this token of esteem from some royal ninny, Chapman reflected how he would much rather be related to a coal miner than one of those so-called “royals.” This thought caused him to cast a glance at the far corner of the room to his safe.

  Inside was a future true prince among men. It had been nearly six months since the occupant of the safe was “selected” as the fittest from amongst a bevy of thirteen brothers. Considering how the other twelve had been blown to smithereens by some interfering hillbill
ies in some boondoggle of a place in the United States, it was clear they were unfit for survival. If their sires couldn’t even ward off such a pathetic threat as that, how fortunate nature had arranged for their elimination. When he had first been approached with the idea of creating a perfect son, he had gone along with the project reluctantly. He had never been enthusiastic about having “brothers” for his and Reginald’s offspring, but it had seemed necessary to put up with the others, just to get the thing done. Immediately after the fiasco, he had contacted them all to offer them the opportunity to continue Project Cripton by serving the one who survived. They weren’t particularly enthusiastic, but he had ways of persuading them.

  Most of them were under obligations of one sort or another to him. They were all regarded as important men, captains of industry, but he was more than a captain. No one really knew how much he was really worth, but it was more than his five closest rivals combined.

  In the game of life, he had definitely won hands down. This brought on a coughing fit. He was having more of those lately. They had started when Reginald was alive, so he’d blamed it on second hand smoke. His lungs checked out, but they persisted despite every attempt he’d made to cure them. He shrugged. He came from a very long-lived line and expected to carry on for at least another twenty years. It would take that long to prepare his son to take command, not only of his vast, almost limitless wealth, but perhaps the world.

  This thought brought a great smile of triumph to his face, which would have looked sinister had there been another human around to observe it. He went back to study the face of the long dead king. His face floated above the elaborate dress, with an expression both arch and sensuous. His left calf showed in a silk stocking as shapely as that of his forerunner Henry VIII’s, who had apparently started a trend among royals. They could flaunt their muscular calves all they liked, but they had been out of real power since about the time of Henry. Perhaps there was a connection between flashing their lower limbs and letting the real reins of power slide into the grasp of the always ambitious aristocracy.

  The Chapmans were descended from those who had seen an opportunity with the dissolution of the monasteries to grab vast estates. However much the old man may have enjoyed the idea of a coal mining ancestor, the fact was they were descended from men who had the vision to press Henry to break with the church and create something new. They gave him the honorific title of head of the church, but what they got was worth a lot more. They became the real power houses in England for the next four hundred years.

  Chapman said to the portrait, “I think my son and I will mark the occasion of his coming of age to burn you ceremoniously.” The fact was, he would have liked to have destroyed the thing when his father had been sputtering out the last of his gin soaked life. He had dreamed of tossing it into the fireplace in the old man’s sick room to give him an idea of what he intended to do with everything he considered precious. He had actually managed to burn a lot of it when he’d re-located from the family estate to this residence to supervise Project Cripton. But in the end he had decided to keep the portrait. For one thing, it was worth a fortune. That had been a much more important consideration at the time of his parent’s demise, but it still required consideration of course.

  “Gin!” he hissed. What kind of aristocrat drank gin? His father had picked up a taste for it from one of his numerous tarts, and that, along with some other diseases from the same sources spelled the end of him. Well tarts, at least those of the female variety were never his weakness. He hadn’t given much thought to personal relationships until relatively late in life.

  Reginald had been his only serious relationship and their arrangement had lasted for a number of years. He was younger, more daring, from a good, but nearly destitute family. At first he had tried to get him to give some assistance to some of his family members, but he had made it quite clear that their arrangement did not include any charity work. Reginald had merely laughed at this, and blithely disconnected from his poor relations. Nothing else ever rose to disturb their peaceful co-existence until Reginald had learned from that blathering geneticist that certain of the potential offspring were eliminated. He had simply ordered him to test the various candidates for the gene which was said to control obsessive behaviors like smoking. Those who had gotten it from Reginald’s side of the family were eliminated.

  “You went behind my back,” Reginald had dared to scream at him, his face livid. Until that moment, Chapman had never seen him really angry.

  “I thought it was for the best,” he said quietly, but a sullen rage was beginning to grow. It had been a long time since he had felt anything quite like it. It was very rare for someone to challenge him and he did not appreciate this outburst from someone he had rescued from a life of genteel drudgery.

  The resentment brewed for weeks. Reginald kept his distance and finally took a holiday, but returned in good spirits. It was quite clear that he had been on some kind of lark, involving no doubt many moments of debauchery. This thought left him livid. He simply couldn’t stand being made a fool of in such a sordid fashion.

  He made a call and one afternoon while out rowing on the nearby lake, Reginald’s boat conveniently capsized. He had the remains cremated and dumped unceremoniously where the man had drowned. He had lost touch with his family, so there was no one around to ask any questions. He had moments of regret, mainly in the middle of the night, but most of the time, he was glad to be rid of Reginald’s incessant smoking. He also had the comfort of knowing that Reginald’s good aristocratic genes were preserved in the person growing in the safe.

  A discreet chime sounded and Chapman nodded. He had a camera installed that allowed the foreign staff to be able to ascertain when he was available to receive contact from them. They were also required to keep a twenty-four hour watch on the vault. These measures were recently put in place and not completely understood apparently. “What is it?” he yelled. This brought a startled middle aged man running. He picked up the phone on the table on the right hand side of the old man and handed it to him. “This is Chapman,” the old man said into the phone and motioned the man away. He turned around in a kind of military flourish and exited.

  “Mr. Chapman, this is Regis Melton.”

  “What do you want?”

  “We’ve got some problems over here I need to discuss.”

  “Alright, come over,”

  “I need time to get some figures together, right now isn’t …”

  “Come now, fill me in,” the old man snapped and hung up the phone. He took some sips from a snifter of brandy and waited. He began to speculate about what problems could be brewing in the nearby laboratory. Given the complexity of the various types of research going on, it could be any number of things. It was probably something gone wrong with the robotics. Melton would want an okay for pouring more money into fixing the problem.

  He was inclined to deny them any more funding for that. In fact, he was inclined to deny them any more funding period. He had a good mind to close up shop and return to the ancestral home. This place wasn’t the same anymore. It hadn’t been the same since the night the previous fall when the light came down out of the sky. He winced, remembering how he of all people had been denied access to it. Well, it might be time to go out there and claim his share, and put the stupid mob in its place.

  The chime sounded. He nodded his head and this time the man, Jakobweiz seemed to get it. Momentarily, he escorted Melton into the room. “Sit down, you look white as a sheet,” Chapman said, as the servant backed out of the room.

  “It’s dreadful news, just terrible.” Melton said.

  “Well, it can’t be bad as all that, spit it out, man,” Chapman exclaimed. He maneuvered into his chair and waited for Melton to position himself in a chair as well.

  “They just won’t work. The whole thing is a wash. I need time to go over it, but this morning the robotic system just collapsed.”

  The old man squinted at him, “Collapsed, How? Wha
t?”

  Melton threw up his hands, “All of it, the robots just melted into goo.” He blinked at Chapman. “How can metal melt? Without heat, how can that happen?”

  Chapman shook his head, “Listen to me. I’ve had enough of all this nonsense. I’m shutting down the whole goddamn operation.”

  “You can’t. It’s a problem, but it’s bound to be something we can fix. Give me just a little while to run some tests.”

  “No, I’ve made up my mind. I’m withdrawing from this infernal pit. I want you to start the process. I’m packing up for London this week. I’m taking the only viable thing this rotten laboratory ever produced and getting out. I suggest you make all the arrangements.”

  “Just like that? It’s over?” Melton asked, bewildered.

  “Yes, that’s it. The writing was on the wall from the time that girl deprived this operation of the creation light.”

  “That’s not right. The others took their offspring over there and would’ve gotten them fixed up right, if there hadn’t been more interference.”

  “Yes and there’s always going to be interference until hell freezes over. I’m going to start over, back where a tiny bit of civilization still exists. I’ll take my son and he’ll be the true north, the starting point of a whole new order. Anyhow, you’ve heard my orders, get on and carry them out.”

  “But you need our support to keep your son going. He won’t survive without us. And what about the new world we were going to create?”

  “Your new world just melted. I knew those damned robots were no good. We don’t need them. I mean my son and I don’t need such nineteenth century fantasy contraptions. We will start something better than any machine or human thing ever seen.”