The Black Madonna (The Mystique Trilogy)

by Traci Harding

  When my vomiting subsided and I could again draw a deep breath, I hauled myself upright and wiped my soiled face on my clothes. ‘This war ends yesterday,’ I vowed with renewed conviction.

  CHAPTER 35

  ICE BREAKING

  MIA DEVERE—MERIDAN

  The descent to the icy surface had been severe, as expected, but otherwise uneventful. Somehow the craft had held together and, having engaged the large drill head on the nose of our vessel, we were now ploughing our way through a thousand metres of ice under which Signet Station One was buried.

  ‘This isn’t so bad,’ Dexter yelled over the deafening sound of the drill head. ‘How many hours did they say it was going to…’

  The drill shut off and all fell silent.

  ‘…take?’ He lowered his voice.

  Ereshkigal entered, a stunned expression on her face. ‘We have a little surprise development,’ she said, opening the hatch door, whereby stairs dropped to ground level. The exterior lights of our craft illuminated a tunnel already drilled through the ice, using a drill head twice the size of our own.

  ‘Well that’s rather impressive!’ said Polaris, reflecting the sentiments of all. We climbed down and observed the freshly made passage. ‘Nefilim obviously.’ He looked to Ereshkigal for her opinion.

  She nodded.

  ‘I thought the portholes were useless to them?’ Dexter was concerned for his station.

  Ereshkigal shrugged. ‘They are.’

  ‘And why would the Nefilim be interested in this porthole, which can only lead back to Irkalla now?’ Dexter looked even more perplexed.

  ‘How shall we proceed?’ Ereshkigal asked. ‘There’s another porthole to Irkalla at Giza—we could try that one.’

  Zalman spoke up. ‘If this is a trap, they’ll have laid another at Giza.’

  ‘Confront them now or confront them later, it’s all the same to me,’ Arcturus said.

  The rest of the staff were of the same mind, so we seconded his suggestion and clambered back on board.

  When we reached the much larger cavity in the ice where the Signet station was located, we found a super-sized model of our own vehicle parked there and abandoned. Beyond a field of frozen stalagmites, the Signet station lit up like a Christmas tree then faded into darkness again.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ Dexter raced off into the station.

  ‘Wait, Dex!’ Polaris called out, but to no end, so he and Arcturus went after him.

  As I was the only one among us with any psychic power, I felt compelled to join the charge.

  ‘Thank you, for everything,’ I said to Ereshkigal, and took her hand to convey how heartfelt my sentiments were. ‘I shall see you in the past.’

  ‘Take care of Killian,’ she instructed.

  ‘We all will,’ Talori assured her, and dragged me by the arm into the tunnel.

  In the cavern before us an icy path led through the forest of frozen stalagmites to the entrance of Signet Station One. Our steps were more cautious now, and as we reached the control centre we spied a handful of Dracon. All bar one of the reptilian warriors stepped onto the defunct porthole. The remaining warrior held an ankh tool out before him and fired at it with one of Levi’s liquid-light guns. The small blast of liquid light was amplified and shot a stream of Blue Flame energy into the porthole—strong enough to light up the entire Signet station for a few moments and send his comrades into Irkalla.

  ‘They must be using the porthole to invade the city,’ Dexter whispered to us.

  ‘Exactly right,’ said the remaining Dracon, turning in our direction.

  Dexter nearly had a heart attack. ‘Taejax!’ he cried, and went running to greet his old comrade. Polaris and Levi were close behind.

  My first acquaintance with our primary Dracon ally had taken place way back when we opened the Hall of Records, before Tamar had even been born! Many of the staff had known and worked with Taejax for centuries longer. Last time we had all seen him, the reptilian warrior had been blown to pieces saving Tamar’s life.

  ‘What are you doing here? How are you here?’ Dexter had never expected to see the Dracon warrior, now turned Anu, back on Earth.

  ‘Waiting for you, of course,’ he retorted. ‘Been waiting a long time.’

  ‘When did you get back?’ Polaris gave the reptilian a large slap on the shoulder. ‘And why are you back in your Dracon guise?’

  ‘I came back after I heard about the aftershock of the RRT,’ he said. ‘I figured I owed it to you all to come help you finish up down here.’

  Solarian gave the creature a huge hug. ‘Good show, old chum.’

  ‘As for my choice of exterior,’ Taejax went on, ‘since being cut off from all the higher dimensions, we Anu can no longer shape-shift and so I had to choose a form to inhabit for this mission. This one has served my purpose better than any.’

  ‘Where did you get that?’ Levi pointed to the liquid-light gun in the reptilian’s hand.

  ‘Off the Klieo,’ replied Taejax and Polaris almost jumped on him.

  ‘When?’

  ‘A few weeks back—’

  Polaris gave a whoop of joy, then calmed himself to hear the details. ‘How is she?’

  ‘She appears fine, Captain,’ Taejax informed him with a grin. ‘She just got blown off her mooring. She must have drifted into the tornado region and got spat out south of the equator where she washed up on one of the outermost ice banks of the Antarctic. I picked her up on radar and, after much digging through ice, we found her, hooked her up to our vessel and towed her out of the ice.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ Polaris asked eagerly.

  Taejax pointed straight up. ‘We towed her here to keep an eye on her.’

  Polaris gave the reptilian a smacking kiss on the cheek. ‘You utter, utter legend!’ he said. ‘That’s our ticket out of here…if she’ll still start. Do the Nefilim know about her?’

  ‘Ah, no,’ Taejax was proud to say. ‘I’ve been keeping them a little occupied lately. A few weeks back the Dracon launched a rebellion, attacking Nefilim centres around the globe. I saved Irkalla for today, which is why our big, ugly friends were far too occupied to try and track down you lot when you materialised here in 2976, despite their full intention to seek and destroy.’

  ‘2976,’ Solarian repeated. ‘Why does that year ring a bell with me? Something significant happens then—I just can’t recall the exact details at present.’

  ‘It’s the year that Mathu predicted Ill would finally destroy surface Earth and all who live upon her,’ Taejax said. He’d been present at the same gathering that Solarian was beginning to remember.

  ‘That’s right,’ Polaris said; he had been present at the prediction too, and he looked at Vespera, who also remembered.

  ‘What is left to destroy?’ I asked in disbelief.

  Taejax motioned around us, referring to the Antarctic region, then pointed up to the star ships frozen in the station’s icy ceiling. ‘Not even Ill wants to live here any more—he’s going to try to simulate the fireball disaster that nearly destroyed the planet, only this time he’s aiming at the Antarctic.’

  ‘Tell me they haven’t planned the attack for today?’ Levi just knew he was asking too much.

  ‘I cannot tell a lie, boss,’ Taejax said to his old friend. ‘They know you’re on Earth now, and even if they can’t murder you all personally, they’ll want to ensure you’re dead before they depart.’

  ‘Then we don’t have much time,’ I said, and stepped onto the inactive porthole.

  Everyone else followed suit, except Polaris.

  ‘I’m no good to you down there,’ he said, and glanced back towards the entrance to the Signet station. ‘I should go take a look at the Klieo and ready her to depart.’

  Levi stepped off the porthole to join him. ‘You might need some help with that.’

  ‘I can get Kali out of Irkalla on my own,’ Taejax assured us all. ‘The fewer of us we have to get to the Klieo at the last minute, the bet
ter.’

  ‘A good point.’ Denera stepped off the porthole, as did everyone else not integral to the mission, which left Taejax, Arcturus, Dexter and me.

  Arcturus looked at me. ‘If they’re going to start the ship and test the systems, they’ll need power.’

  But I wanted to rescue our daughter. ‘How will you get back topside without me?’ I said.

  Taejax raised his light-gun. ‘I still have plenty of ammo.’ He passed me a small hand-held communications device. ‘We’ll keep in touch.’ Then he guided me back off the porthole and, before I could protest further, shot his ankh with a liquid-light bullet and activated the porthole once again.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Arcturus said with a big smile, before he dropped down the funnel into spook world central.

  CHAPTER 36

  MELTDOWN

  TAMAR DEVERE—KALI

  I’d led the world into a holocaust and betrayed friend and foe. Today was the day I’d find out if I was to be damned for my actions, or if the universe had understood and supported the method behind my madness.

  What to do? I thought as I raced to the main court chamber’s door. I feared the door would be electronically locked from the outside, but before I could test it, it slid aside and there was a Dracon in my path.

  This was no ordinary Dracon, however, for beyond his brutal exterior I saw the splendid form of an Anu warrior. ‘Taejax?’ I gasped, recognising him from many of my lives on Earth. I was doubly taken aback to realise my psychic talents had returned. ‘I thought you were dead!’ I cried.

  ‘Long story.’ He grabbed hold of my hand and began dragging me back through the palace.

  ‘Ill plans to melt the South Pole today,’ I yelled over the din of the battle.

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ Taejax said, and continued to pull me along, at the same time fending off the human bodies falling all around us, who, despite their frenzied bloodlust, were dropping like flies under the more seasoned attack of the Dracon.

  ‘But he’s going to—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what he’s going to do,’ Taejax insisted, ‘as we are going to undo it.’

  We passed through the Dracon front line and into the part of the palace they had already secured.

  ‘We are?’ I said hopefully and Taejax nodded.

  ‘Provided we can get you out of here before our exit door gets fried!’

  ‘Tamar!’

  I heard my father’s voice, and saw him standing up ahead. I pulled free from Taejax’s grasp and ran towards him. ‘Father!’ I cried, wanting to throw myself into his embrace and revel in the comfort and peace of it as I had when I was young. But Arcturus drew his sword in warning and I slowed. ‘Father?’ I couldn’t stop my welling tears from choking my voice.

  ‘Is it true that you lured Lugh, Mathu and Killian to their deaths?’ he demanded.

  ‘Yes, it’s true,’ I spluttered, ‘I killed them myself.’ I lost my breath at the memory, overwhelmed by grief. Eventually, I managed to continue. ‘I had to do it, to get into Irkalla and wait out your return. I thought the Rod and Ring of Power could get us back to the past, but they were rendered useless after the SAC alignment…’ I collapsed to my knees before my father, weeping uncontrollably—there were so many painful memories I had suppressed. ‘I killed Lugh and Mathu for nothing!’ I sobbed. ‘I’d planned to go back and change everything, but now…you may as well kill me.’

  ‘You know I cannot kill you, I have to take you back with us,’ Arcturus said.

  ‘But I’ve just got through telling you that I have no way to get us back!’ I wept.

  My father’s response was to sheath his sword, and when I ventured to look at him, his smile filled me with joy.

  ‘You’ve found a way,’ I said, and with the realisation I summoned the energy I needed to stand up again. My actions had been supported and to me that was the universe’s way of saying ‘we were with you all the way’.

  ‘I’ve missed you, Father,’ I said, my voice hoarse with the relief of being in his presence again.

  He embraced me and stroked the back of my head. ‘I will always believe that your intentions are the best, child, but that’s not to say the rest of Amenti’s staff will see it that way.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘The chit-chat can wait,’ Taejax said, urging us to keep moving.

  As I was still a little unstable, my father swept me off the ground and carried me in his arms. I allowed my weary head to rest upon his shoulder. It was heartening to know that there was still one place on this screwed-up planet where I felt safe.

  ‘I’m so sorry if I’ve been a worry to you,’ I said.

  ‘Sweetheart, you are one of the very few souls on this planet who isn’t a worry to me.’

  He kissed the top of my head as we stepped into the elevator and descended to the labyrinth of Ereshkigal.

  The porthole back to surface Earth was being guarded by Dexter and several Dracon.

  ‘Since when have the righteous had such a large contingent of Dracon?’ I asked.

  ‘Since the time of the RRT,’ Taejax informed me, ‘when I returned to Earth as a Dracon and started enlightening my kindred from within their Underworldly ranks.’

  I gasped as I realised something. ‘That would have been another contributing factor to the success of the RRT—no one would have expected the excess of high frequency on Earth at that time to be coming from the Dracon quarter.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Taejax concurred, ‘the Nefilim consider reptilians to be mindless, souless and so unevolved that they have never attempted to bring my species under the influence of their frequency fence.’

  The Dracon around him were amused by this, and I was amused to see Dracon laughing. Beneath their harsh exteriors they were Dracon no longer; they were my people—or at least they were Anu who would one day evolve into the Anunnaki. I knew these Dracon from my time in Irkalla—they were all of high rank—and yet I had never seen Taejax in the Underworld until today. Obviously our ally had been operating behind the scenes, where there was less danger of him being recognised, and these highly placed Dracon had been reporting to him. I was so proud of them all for fighting for their right to evolve despite the long, miserable, lonely plight of their race. I had always felt one of Ill’s cruellest curses was his decree that all Dracon be male. For the hundreds and thousands of years these warriors had survived on Earth, forced to sustain their existence by the most violent means or to perish as a species, they had never known a loving moment—not the love of a mother, lover or child! What a miracle it was that they could still choose to pursue a path of compassion.

  ‘Thank you.’ I placed a hand on Taejax’s shoulder to convey my appreciation. ‘Thank you all—you will be rewarded for your devotion and bravery.’ I looked back at their leader. ‘If I were to contact you in the past, Taejax, would you meet with me?’

  ‘But, of course, Your Highness,’ he said and bowed. ‘I am at your service. However, I had not secured a huge amount of support from among the Dracon before the SAC alignment passed, and it took many hundreds of years to convert so many. I fear—’

  ‘Fear not,’ I assured him. ‘I have something that should speed the troops to your cause rather more swiftly.’

  Taejax looked baffled by my claim. ‘I look forward…or should I say, I look back to our meeting with great anticipation.’

  I smiled, then thought to ask: ‘How shall I find you?’

  ‘Lamhfada knows where to find me.’

  The name took my breath away. I could hardly wait to get back to the past and find safe and sound all those I had betrayed and mourned so long.

  When we returned via the porthole to the control centre of Signet Station One, the station was being rattled by the deep resounding pulses of an imminent electromagnetic blast.

  I was all too familiar with the sound, as the last time I had heard it was the last beautiful sunny day on Earth. It was also the last day any being on the planet had known freedom—any be
ing who did not drown, freeze or get burnt to a crisp.

  ‘We’re never going to make it back to the surface before that fireball gets here,’ Dexter said, leading the sprint to the exit anyway.

  ‘Run!’ I heard the waiting Amenti staff members yelling at the top of their lungs from just beyond the ice forest of the outer station.

  My father picked up speed, swept me up on the way past and delivered me to the Klieo in seconds flat.

  ‘Oh my God!’ I looked at him, stunned, as he put me down.

  ‘Yes, my child,’ he replied with a grin, then headed off to see what Polaris was doing about getting us out of here.

  ‘Kali, child, you had us worried.’ Denera hugged me tight.

  ‘You certainly did,’ Ashlee said, joining our hug, followed by Talori, Thana and Vespera.

  ‘Meridan wanted to go into Irkalla after you again, and she wanted to be here to welcome your safe return,’ Denera told me.

  ‘But she’s being a battery for the ship—’ Talori stopped mid-sentence as the drone of the electromagnetic pulse reached a deafening crescendo.

  I looked outside to see Taejax standing alone on the ice, watching our departure.

  ‘Come with us!’ I implored him, unable to bear that in a moment he would die a horrid fiery death.

  ‘I am already there,’ he replied.

  The hatch door closed and bolted itself, and the blue-green weblike light field of our vessel’s time-shift function engulfed our surroundings. The force and noise of the fireball explosion that erupted in our wake disappeared as the Klieo made a quantum leap that reversed the event on our way back to 2017.

  CHAPTER 37

  THE ASCENDING SPIRAL—2017 AD

  The Amenti team had made a decision to return to 20 December 2017 rather than exactly the same time we had left. If we could bring the sphere down shortly before the SAC alignment ended, that gave the Nefilim no leeway to go forward in time and change the outcome. This also minimised how long we’d need to keep Killian safe from Ill.