The Black Madonna (The Mystique Trilogy)

by Traci Harding

  ‘On the bright side, André will never get his hands on Albray’s ringstone,’ I commented, referring to the Elohim’s request. ‘In fact, the ringstone, in theory, will never be lost.’

  ‘So we simply make another stop here in 2003,’ Dexter said with a shrug.

  ‘No, no,’ Arcturus corrected, ‘there’s a hidden porthole incorporated into the site at Serabit that connects that complex to the porthole in this Signet station.’

  ‘Really?’ I was fascinated, being familiar with the ancient temple in question. ‘I wonder where in the temple the porthole is hiding? In the Ark Chamber perhaps?’

  ‘Would you care to accompany me?’ Arcturus said.

  I knew he saw a chance to get back at my partner for exclusively inviting Mia onto the Klieo’s control deck, but as I was curious, and a little annoyed at my partner myself, I took hold of Arcturus’s outstretched hand. ‘I’d love to,’ I said.

  ‘Me too,’ Thana said, having also had past experience with the Star-Fire Temple.

  ‘Come on then.’ Arcturus was more than delighted to take hold of a hand each and lead us through the golden barrier and into his Signet station.

  As I passed through the glowing disk, I was overwhelmed by that ‘sense of Albray’ Thana had commented on earlier and I felt the old attraction to him begin to stir. Fond memories and sensual thoughts about him flooded my mind—orange was, after all, a vibrant and primal colour.

  ‘Wow,’ I said, trying to shake off my arousal before it landed me in strife.

  ‘All right!’ Thana shimmied like a Latino dancer aroused by a fiery tune.

  ‘Is something the matter, ladies?’ Arcturus couldn’t wipe the smile off his face; he knew full well that this place was potent with his personal essence.

  ‘Orange is my new favourite frequency,’ Thana boldly teased him, ‘at least until we get to the next Signet station.’

  I laughed at her insight and glanced back to the entrance barrier, expecting Polaris to come storming through after us.

  ‘He’s locked out,’ Arcturus said, and pouted to mimic my husband’s reaction to the fact.

  I had to smile at his cheek. ‘Why must you bait him constantly?’

  ‘One should always have a goal,’ he replied. ‘But quite apart from that, I really enjoy it.’

  Inside, the Signet station had all the grandeur of a Turkish mosque. The main chamber was round and defined by great pillared arches of solid amber crystal that rose to support a transparent dome in the ceiling. Beyond the dome was a sky of orange, which rained bolts of Blue Flame energy upon the Signet station.

  ‘Is that the base of the Hathor pyramid?’ I asked. It was so huge I couldn’t see its sides.

  ‘It certainly is,’ Arcturus confirmed. ‘It encompasses the entire mountain.’

  ‘My goddess!’ Thana was awestruck by the etheric pyramid’s sheer magnitude.

  ‘Indeed,’ Arcturus agreed, his eyes resting on Thana. ‘Is it any wonder our lives have been so intertwined when you are the goddess of my stargate?’

  Thana was charmed. ‘You always did have such a lovely way of putting things.’

  Between the arched pillars were huge windows giving a view of a cavern that hosted a lake of bubbling molten magma. Unlike the other stations, whose crystal conductors were outside the control centre, the Blue Flame energy here was drawn down through the inside of the huge amber pillars and then directed into the Earth through a central funnel that ran from beneath the control centre and deep into the planet’s crust below the molten lake.

  ‘That’s why it’s so warm in here,’ I commented.

  ‘I thought you looked a little flushed,’ Albray teased, holding a hand to my cheek.

  This was the first time I had been with my knight outside of Polaris’s presence since Albray had been reunited with his physical form, and his personal sonic was radiating through me intensely, even more so than the times his spirit had possessed my body.

  ‘Stop flirting,’ I said and walked past him towards the middle of the chamber where the solid amber crystal plate of the station’s porthole was set into the polished gold floor.

  ‘I never flirt,’ he defended himself, but when Thana and I couldn’t stop laughing, he reconsidered. ‘Well, maybe once or twice…but definitely not just then.’

  ‘You flirt and you don’t even know you’re doing it,’ I argued, ‘that’s how chronic it is with you.’

  ‘Well, orange is my frequency,’ he said. ‘What’s your excuse?’

  ‘My excuse?’ I gasped, surprised. ‘I’ve never flirted with you!’

  He stared blankly at me.

  ‘All right, maybe once or twice…but definitely not just then.’ I grinned, as did he.

  ‘Well, I’m glad we’ve sorted that out,’ he said very charmingly.

  ‘Yes, quite,’ I agreed, and looked around for the control panel for the porthole.

  Arcturus stepped straight onto the huge, round amber plate. ‘All Inner Earth technologies are telepathically operated,’ he explained, waving to us to join him.

  ‘So you just focus on Serabit?’ Thana asked.

  He directed us to stare into the amber plate. An image began to materialise within the crystal and I found myself looking down upon the central platform of the circular entrance chamber of the Star-Fire Temple at Mount Serabit.

  ‘How can that be?’ I asked. ‘This platform has a great gold dome above it.’

  Arcturus looked at me as if I were stupid. ‘The dome is the porthole,’ he said, raising his eyebrows.

  I wanted to hit myself, but refrained as the glowing amber stone beneath our feet began to liquefy into a whirlpool; then its centre opened wide and the three of us dropped straight through onto the red-Orme-gold floor of the Star-Fire Chamber.

  It had been hundreds of years since I’d set foot in this ancient place, and the last time I had, it near killed me, twice over. Thana’s experience here had almost been fatal too, and had hindered her spiritual development for hundreds of years.

  The golden dome we’d just dropped through had reconstituted and gave no hint of its secret function. The round central platform we’d landed on marked the intersection of two red-Orme-gold paths that crossed through the chamber—from the outside entrance to the Ark Chamber, and to opposing annexes on either side of the sacred dwelling that housed the ancient keys that opened the Ark Chamber. There were also concentric circular paths of stone radiating out from the central platform, separated by deep pits that could be filled with flammable liquid via a lever located near the entrance to the tunnel to the outside world.

  Arcturus was gazing at a pile of bones near the tunnel entrance, which were his remains from his days as Albray the Crusader knight. His first visit to this site had killed him, and had seen him cursed to be a ghost for over seven hundred years.

  ‘It’s odd to think those bones are the very same ones holding me up right now,’ he said.

  Mia had visited this site soon after this present time and seen Albray resurrected. Still, in the future reality we now inhabited, this would not happen—Albray had already become Arcturus and so long as he was operating outside of space and time, any changes to the events of his past would not affect him.

  Around the exterior walls of the round chamber were flaming torches, put there for illumination. I found this puzzling. ‘I wasn’t expecting to find the temple all lit up like this,’ I commented.

  ‘It is a little surprising,’ Arcturus said, ‘given that it should have been vacant for the last two hundred years! Would you ladies be so kind?’

  He directed us to the annexes where the keys to the Ark Chamber were kept, then strode down the path that led to the tunnel up to the surface.

  I made haste towards the white-pillared annexe, which contained the Highward Firestone vial, otherwise known as the Star. Thana moved off in the opposite direction to fetch the Firestone vial from the red-pillared annexe.

  But when Arcturus reached the path that ascended to the surfa
ce, he stopped abruptly. ‘The temple is open!’ he cried out.

  ‘What?’ I came out of the annexe holding the glowing white Star vial.

  ‘Molier must have got the chamber open long before he even contacted Mia,’ Arcturus said, turning on his heel and striding back to the central platform to meet us. ‘The whole thing was staged purely to get Mia here to retrieve the keys and open the Ark Chamber for him.’

  ‘Well, doh!’ Thana mocked as she joined us with the Fire vial, for she had been similarly deceived by Molier many centuries before.

  ‘That means he’s here right now!’ Arcturus looked ready to finish off the Orme-filled vampire and be done with it, again!

  ‘Albray, I know you want nothing better than to finish Molier again,’ I sympathised, ‘but if he was to be killed while you are operating within the confines of time and space, you will cease to exist, for his death now will affect your resurrection then.’

  ‘What?’ Albray was understandably alarmed to learn this.

  ‘Trust me,’ I advised. ‘I’m a space/time architect and such an encounter would be very bad for you.’

  He looked perturbed, but nodded.

  ‘While we’re standing around here, the clock is ticking,’ Thana reminded us, and handed her vial to me. ‘You two retrieve the ring,’ she said, and pulled out her liquid-light gun. ‘I’ll keep watch for Molier.’

  On either side of the golden door to the Ark Chamber was an inset designed to house one of the vials. Once each vial was placed into its holder, the door vanished to reveal a small connecting chamber hosting a golden breastplate and a copper bowl and pitcher. We had no need of these safety measures today, for we were here with the consent of the Elohim. Two more keyholes for the Star and Fire vials were to be found on the inner door to the chamber.

  ‘This is very exciting,’ I said to Arcturus as the door to the central chamber materialised once more behind us. ‘I never got this far into the temple before.’

  Aside from the glowing contents of the vials, the room fell into darkness.

  ‘This ought to be a rare treat then,’ Arcturus said, sounding pleased to be the one to indulge me. He placed the vials in the holders provided and the massive doors of the Ark Chamber parted.

  A red pathway led to a central ringed platform, around which flowed a sea of the same flammable fluid that filled the canals in the outer chamber. I couldn’t make out much of the detail of the chamber as it was in darkness, although I could see the light from the vials in Arcturus’s hands reflected at an odd angle in the ceiling.

  ‘Wait here,’ Arcturus said as he retrieved the keys. ‘I’ll turn the lights on.’

  He walked onto the central platform and placed the Star vial and the Fire vial in their separate conductors atop a large object. As soon as the vials were housed correctly, a current of electricity formed an arc of light between them. Their glowing contents were vacuumed into the belly of the object, which flared with golden light to reveal itself as one of the ancient arks of myth.

  It was about one hundred and fifteen centimetres in length by seventy centimetres in height and appeared as thick as it was tall. Hieroglyphs featured along its sides and at each corner stood a leg support of rich polished timber. On the golden lid, known as ‘the mercy seat’, two metal points rose up and curved inward towards each other. These held the Star and Fire vials, the electric current running between them illuminating the entire chamber.

  The place exceeded all my expectations with its grandeur and I gasped in amazement. Its walls were of highly polished gold, as were the several large pillars that upheld its roof and the inverted golden dome in its centre. The unusual dome hung directly above the central platform and mirrored the entire chamber, the golden ark at its centre.

  Arcturus held his hands out over the ark, as if warming himself on its glow. Orange light beamed from his palms into the ark’s lid and the golden mercy seat rose slowly into the air to expose a coiled red crystal ring. The ring levitated out of the ark and Arcturus reached forth and claimed it. As he did, the ark’s lid slammed down and the chamber lights went out.

  After a moment, the two vials atop the mercy seat began to refill, their glowing contents providing some light in the darkness. As soon as they were full, Arcturus retrieved and pocketed them. ‘Best get them out of harm’s way while we’re at it,’ he said.

  With no more light by which to admire the beautiful chamber, I turned and followed him out.

  Arcturus placed the vials in the keyholes either side of the door leading back into the central chamber of the Star-Fire complex. The doors to the Ark Chamber closed behind us then the exit door vanished to expose us to the comparatively light-filled main chamber. To our great horror, we were met by the sight of Molier and three companions, two male and one female, standing upon the central platform beneath the golden dome.

  There was no mistaking Molier: his pale, sun-deprived skin, his dark hair and even darker eyes were burned into my memory—along with his many other guises, animal and demon. He had not aged a day in over two hundred years!

  The group appeared mystified to see us emerging from the ancient chamber they so desperately sought access to. But it didn’t take Molier long to recognise our faces among those he’d known during his seven hundred years upon this Earth.

  ‘Sir Albray Devere and Lady Ashlee Granville-Devere—fancy seeing the two of you together, and here of all places!’ He began to chuckle, although clearly a little nervous about the implications of this event—and his eyes darted to the entrance to check that Albray’s body still lay where he had left it to rot in the thirteenth century. Then he grinned as the truth dawned on him. ‘You found your way into the inter-time war, you lucky devils,’ he deduced, and his eyes narrowed as he prepared to take on his demon form.

  Where is Thana? I wondered, until a light-bullet shot down from the golden dome above Molier and sent him flying onto his back. Three more light-bullets and his companions joined him on the ground, all writhing as the Orme spewed forth from their bodies.

  I was horrified by the event and, concerned for Albray’s continued existence, I shoved him towards the porthole. Thankfully Thana was on my wavelength. She swirled down in a whirlwind of liquid light to retrieve Albray and immediately shot back up into the Signet station with him, safely delivering him into the Otherworld and away from the consequences of the time-space continuum of this Earth plane.

  In a moment Thana returned to join me in the Star-Fire temple. ‘All safe,’ she commented upon touchdown. ‘And now we won’t have to worry about the mischief Molier might cause in the future.’

  I was still gaping at the ease with which she’d despatched Molier. ‘What I wouldn’t have done for one of those weapons two hundred years ago!’ I said.

  Thana smiled. ‘I must confess, it did feel awfully good.’ She looked down at the vampire, who, having vomited up an excessive amount of black bile, was now returning to his true age and rotting into a gooey pile of flesh and bone.

  His comrades, who had only recently fallen victim to their Orme addictions, had passed out from the effort of their purge, but would be as right as rain after a good sleep and a shower.

  ‘Let’s drag these guys out,’ I suggested. ‘We can’t leave them to be trapped in here for all eternity.’ For once the sun set, the entrance to the temple would close and, without an abundant supply of Orme powder, could never be opened again.

  I looked down at one of the bodies—André Pierre, the man who was destined to bring Mia onto this project. ‘Well, this reinforces the fact that André will never get his hands on your ringstone,’ I told Arcturus. ‘Chances are he’ll never even know of its existence.’

  ‘What, for the love of the goddess, took you so long?’ Polaris fumed when we returned.

  ‘We kicked Molier’s butt into oblivion,’ Thana boasted, raising her arms in victory. ‘And his mates.’

  ‘We’re not supposed to be changing history,’ Polaris stressed.

  ‘But you said t
hat we would…’ Arcturus held up the red-coiled ring he’d been instructed to retrieve and offered it to Polaris, ‘…and so we have.’

  Polaris declined to take the treasure. ‘No, you don’t give it to me now, you give it to me then,’ and he motioned back down the tunnel towards its entrance.

  ‘Then our work here is done.’ Arcturus led the way along the tunnel.

  As we followed him, I noted the drop in the cavern’s vibratory frequency as the spectacular jewelled tunnel faded back into the grey rock surface.

  ‘I think I should wait here for a bit,’ Polaris suggested as we reached the entrance to the cavern, not wanting to meet his other self during the handover of the ring.

  ‘Sure,’ Arcturus said, and went ahead alone. The rest of us waited with Polaris until Arcturus reappeared and beckoned us into the daylight. ‘It’s done,’ he said.

  ‘I was here?’ Polaris wanted to be sure all had gone as he’d remembered.

  ‘You were,’ Arcturus assured him. ‘Don’t you trust me to do something as simple as handing over a ring?’

  Polaris didn’t want to answer that. He pointed to a small tear in Arcturus’s Amenti suit. ‘What happened there?’ he asked.

  Arcturus shrugged. ‘I must have caught it on something.’ He held the tear together and it mended itself. ‘Good as new. Can we move on now?’ And he led us back to where the Klieo was parked.

  The rest of the team followed, but Polaris hung back, looking perplexed.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  My husband declined to answer.

  CHAPTER 18

  DECEIVING APPEARANCES

  MIA DEVERE—MERIDAN

  I awoke to find the concerned faces of Talori and Castor staring down at me. As I stirred, their worried looks changed to broad smiles.

  ‘There, I told you, your Lady du Lac is perfectly fine.’ Talori sounded like she was having a little dig at her partner as she ruffled his hair.