The Jealous God

by Brendan Carroll

  “It’s worse than creepy,” Michael agreed.

  They had been leaning over the edge of the well, looking into the inky depths, when the serene evening air had been shattered by screams and wails. The sound had made the blood freeze in their veins, and they had watched as Father Andrew, two of his assistants, and several more people had emerged from the various buildings inside the inner bailey and headed for the rear gate. “I don’t like that guy at all. I never did!”

  “I wish my father would come home,” Galen muttered. He plucked a daisy from the cracks between the rocks and twirled it in his fingers. “I’m sick of all this waiting and wondering. We don’t even know what is going on any more.”

  “Are you sure my father and Uncle Mark are in the underworld?” Michael asked Luke Andrew.

  “Positive.” Luke stopped his pacing and chewed his lip nervously. “I just don’t know why or what happened. The last I heard, they were on their way to Lothian, to see if we might be able to go back there, any time soon, and then nothing. I couldn’t even get a blurb in the dish until yesterday. Wherever they’ve been, they’ve been in serious trouble, I’d say,” Luke mused, and then came to sit beside his blonde protégé. Both Michael and Galen had reverted to wearing the kilts again, since being reunited with their unlikely mentor. The trio rarely parted these days. The island had become almost like a prison since the western world had self-destructed.

  “Bloody hell!” Luke commented and looked up at the sound of a dog howling. “Now what?”

  “Do you think we should go up there and see what’s what?” Galen jerked his head toward the postern gate, where the screams had ceased some few minutes earlier.

  “No. Let them deal with him,” Michael shook his head. “I don’t like being near him. They should have taken him back to New Babylon with them. Let his father deal with him. I don’t understand why Omar left him here to start with. He obviously doesn’t want to be here. I’d rather wrestle with a cu sith.” The howling dog was not a real dog at all, but one of the ghostly faery dogs that roamed the islands at night.

  “What is so strange to me is… why they didn’t take him to his mother’s funeral?” Galen asked and tossed the flower into the grass in front of his feet. “I would have insisted on going to my mother’s funeral.”

  “There is bad blood between Omar and his son,” Luke said quietly, smiling at Galen’s innocence. If they felt like prisoners, it was nothing compared to Bari. The son of Omar was indeed a prisoner under constant surveillance. He had done his share of watches over the disturbed son of the Prophet, and he had hated and dreaded every second of it. Bari had tried to use his powers of persuasion on him several times. The boy was a power to be reckoned with, and it took everything he had to keep him in check. He sorely needed help. His powers were growing daily now. “Believe me, I know how that can be. Isaac doesn’t seem to be overly fond of his father, and the feeling appears to be mutual.”

  “So I’ve noticed, but what with the war and everything, it seems strange,” Michael commented as he pushed himself up and leaned over the edge of the wall again, dropping a pebble into the depths. After a second or two, a tiny plunk was heard as the stone hit the water below. “If my father is down there, maybe we could find him.”

  “Don’t start!” Galen pushed himself up. “You know we’d be skinned alive if we try something like that.”

  “But Luke!” Michael whined and looked down at his cousin. “Why can’t we just go down for a quick peek? We could be back before dawn. You know the way. You know all about the underworld.”

  “Yes, I do, and that is precisely why we will not be going,” Luke said with finality, got up and started his pacing again. “Time is all screwed up there. We might go down for a quick peek and come back in 2150 or something.”

  “What about the skull?” Galen whispered. “When are you going to tell someone?”

  “I don’t know.” Luke slammed one fist against the other.

  “But don’t you think we should tell someone?” Michael asked him.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Luke nodded. “I should have told my father!”

  “Now it’s gone, and we don’t know who took it.” Galen frowned and the scar on his cheek crinkled. “The longer we wait, the worse it’s going to be.”

  “I would tell my father, if he were here,” Luke told them. “I really don’t trust anyone else. If we tell someone here, who would it be? There is no one here… I mean no Knights of the Council. We would have to tell Peter Rushkin, and he would panic… or Reuben, and what could Reuben do?” Luke knew the only reason he was left behind was because of the power he possessed. The fact he could fill in for his father if worse came to worse, made it too risky to have both himself and his father in the same place at the same time right now. The Knights were truly becoming paranoid. Luke was quite sure, Omar could do anything he could.

  “We could tell Simeon,” Galen suggested. “He’s pretty level-headed.”

  “But he’s not a member of the Council,” Luke reminded them. “All things considered, I am probably the senior man on the island. I was, after all, a Knight of the Council for a short time. I think, I am capable of keeping my own counsel.”

  Michael shrugged and Galen’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Then, if you are senior even to Peter Rushkin, why can’t you just tell him we are going down to search for Sir Mark and Sir Luke? I mean, what could he do?”

  Luke frowned. He hadn’t thought of it that way. They were virtually cut off here from the rest of the world, and the reports sifting in from Great Britain were not good, nor were they very reliable.

  Chaos reigned on the European Continent, and they’d not heard from New Babylon in weeks. For all they knew, everything could have been destroyed by now, but he knew from his scrying the Knights were still intact. He had been greatly relieved to have finally located his father and Luke Matthew, but their whereabouts just added to the puzzle. Some of the Knights were in Germany and others had traveled to Sicily. He knew this, but he couldn’t understand exactly why, or where, they were going. They were being extremely close-lipped about the whole thing, and his visions had given him very little clues about what they were up to.

  The revelations the Grand Master had made in what had become known among the apprentices as the Great Council, were still ringing in his ears. Luke had never been overly religious. He’d never had much time for it, and he’d certainly not paid much attention to the few classes he had attended at Barry’s academy; nor had he paid much attention to his mother’s lessons, when she had taken the education of himself and his sister, Nicole, into her own hands.

  Jasmine had probably taught him more about religion than anyone else and that had not exactly been in line with the tenets of the Catholic faith. In fact, she would have been burned at the stake in another time, but some of what she had practiced had been Catholic in origin. He had been totally shocked to learn that the Templars did not really practice Catholicism. He had always assumed it was so… until now. The Emerald Tablets of Thoth and what the Master had said about his father had shocked him, even though, he had always known his father was not what he appeared to be. Since then, he had spent a great deal of time in Lavon’s and Izzy’s archives, studying the old texts, and he had learned their ‘religion’ was something of a mixture of Judaism and Christianity that predated the Holy Roman Empire! Even Simon d’Ornan’s devotion to the Church seems to have been a carefully contrived fraud of sorts. It seemed Simon was neither a Catholic Priest, nor a Jewish Rabbi, but something in between. Something that the world in general did not recognize as a known form of theology.

  The more he had delved into it, the more confused he had become, until he had finally given up entirely, and simply attended the masses and services Father Andrew conducted at St. Germaine’s with renewed interest. Father Andrew often spoke of something called perfection and perfecti and the cleansing of the soul in readiness of reunion with the Father and the Holy Sophia, or Mother. He told them they must
fast from the world and learn to know themselves in order to know God. Luke had found some of what Father Andy preached in the Gospel of Thomas, one of the ancient Nag Hammadi texts and some in the fragments of the Cathar documents in the Archives.

  Their communion was not traditional either, varying slightly. They used real bread and real wine. There were no little wafers. The bread was dipped in the wine and consecrated by the priest. This first ‘helping’ as Luke thought of it, was left out for the birds after the ceremony, then the loaf of bread was passed around. Each of them tore off a piece of it and dipped it in the cup before eating it. Not the traditional Catholic communion, but rather something more in line with the old ceremonies of the Celts as far as Luke could find. Definitely heretical and definitely in need of a good burning at the stake, but Andrew practiced this communion regularly, and all of the island residents accepted it readily. He found bits and pieces of the thing everywhere, but nowhere could he find the whole picture.

  Now, his preoccupation with the history of the Order and their beliefs had gone out the window, with the discovery the skull that he and Michael and Galen had hidden under the round tower had simply disappeared without a trace. Added to the reports from London announcing the attempted regicide of King William Henry and the subsequent search for the ‘murderers’, he had experienced something very near panic. Ipso facto, everyone on the two islands was living in a sort of limbo, waiting to hear from Edgard d’Brouchart or Mark Ramsay or someone… anyone!

  If King William Henry sent his army here to search for Luke Matthew and Mark Andrew, they would not be able to stop them from a full-scale invasion of their island retreats. Omar Kadif would no longer be able to cast a protective net over them as things stood. King William Henry had already reinstated the Church of England as the official church of choice in the British Isles and Ireland proper and had further renounced his allegiance with the New Order of the Temple, declaring it heretical and responsible for the attempted coup. The Templars and the less visible members of the ancient brotherhood of monks still occupying some of the monasteries on the Isle of Ramsay were well known to the King. It would only be a matter of time before the Royal Navy showed up with heavy guns, racks, iron maidens and other instruments of torture for the second coming of the Holy Inquisition. With all this rushing about in his head, he still wondered how his father would manage to pull them out of this one, and he wondered how in the world his father and Luke Matthew had ended up being accused of attempted regicide and murder. Now that would be one for the archives!

  He stopped pacing and looked up at the top of the round tower as the music began again. Vanni and his friends were up there practicing their drums and other instruments. The red canvas canopy that Selwig and Vanni had constructed over the round tower’s battlements, flapped in the evening breeze, and the glow of bluish light showed through the crenellations. He had to admit he liked the sounds of the drums and pipes and dulcimers. They struck an ancient chord in his own Celtic soul.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  “I don’t like him!” Vanni frowned and ran his fingers through his damp curls.

  “I find him very hard to bear,” Selwig agreed.

  They were leaning on the rough stone between two of the raised portions of the rampart on top of the mews. The conical, canvas cover snapped in the breeze over their heads. Vanni was shining with perspiration in the blue glow of the elven fire. His drumming was quite demanding, and he had taken off his tee shirt to cool himself in the breeze blowing in from the sea. They had been listening to Greta’s latest composition for her dulcimer when they had heard the cries from the postern gate.

  “He is evil, I tell you,” Vanni insisted and wiped his face on his shirt. He had grown even taller and now towered over the diminutive Tuathan healer, who had become his closest friend and confidant, second only to Greta, and surpassing the friendship, he had enjoyed with Il Dolce Mio.

  “He suffers terrible nightmares,” Selwig added. The wind blew back his reddish-gold hair, and his green eyes sparkled in the light of the fire. “A sign of a troubled mind. Perhaps, he misses his mother and father.”

  “He does not care for his father,” Vanni told him. “I have seen how they look at each other. And, I do not believe, he loved his mother either. I would have given anything to have known my mother and to have had a mother such as Ruth Kadif… ahhhh. My father said she was a good woman, and my father knows these things. I would have been a good son for her.”

  “But he was taken away when he was very small, much like you and I,” Selwig told him. “Perhaps, we should have more sympathy for him.”

  “No. He is evil,” Vanni said with finality and turned about.

  Il Dolce Mio was on his knees behind Simeon’s daughter with his arms stretched around her, showing her how to strike the strings of the dulcimer.

  “Ahhhhemmm!” Vanni cleared his throat loudly.

  Greta looked up and smiled at him. She was quite lovely in the blue light of the elven fire.

  “What are you doing, my King?” Vanni asked the elf as he moved back away from the girl.

  “He was showing me how to bounce the hammer more effectively for trilling,” Greta said, and then demonstrated, her newly learned skill. “See?”

  Il Dolce Mio stood up and looked down the blonde girl with great affection evident in his small face.

  “She is a most talented musician,” the King told his former charge. “We would welcome her in my Kingdom and honor her with a feast, and much dancing, and merry-making.”

  Greta looked up at the King, who was not much larger than herself, and blushed.

  “I’m not that good,” she said modestly.

  “Oh, quite the contrary,” Il Dolce Mio argued as he sat down beside her on the rough wood and picked up his own drum. “We need more musicians and more instruments. When I get home, I’m going to have my craftsmen make such an instrument for me, and you must come and teach us to play.”

  “Greta cannot go to the underworld.” Vanni sat down on the opposite side of the thirteen-year-old girl. “It is too dangerous, and her father would be very angry if she went.”

  “Greta can do whatever she likes.” Il Dolce Mio leaned out to look at Vanni. They glared at each other for several seconds. “My father, the King, would allow her to visit me. He knows I would be able to protect her from any harm. I am, after all, the King!”

  “Your father, the King, is not a king here and moreover, he is not Greta’s father, and he cannot give her permission to do anything,” Vanni told him with just a hint of contempt in his voice. “You forget, Sire, this is the world of men. My father is also of Royal Blood and my mother is a Queen. That makes me a prince. Prince Vannistephetti, the first!”

  “Don’t make me laugh, boy,” the King dismissed him and smiled at Greta. “My gracious Lady Greta would be treated as Royalty if she should visit me at my castle.”

  “You have a castle?” Her face lit up. “A real castle?”

  “Of course!” Il Dolce Mio held out his slender hands and turned them over in front of her. “I built it with my own two hands. It has passages, and arbors, and walkways, and bridges and bowers and bubbling springs. Gardens and many windows from which to admire them. The birds fly about inside and out, and the butterflies come every day. At night, the dryads dance in the vaults, and the faeries make beautiful music. Every day we have a great feast and only the finest victuals line my table. You would have a place of honor.”

  “I’d love to see it!” Greta told him and then glanced at Vanni. “You lived there. Surely, you would not mind if I visited the King? Perhaps, you could come with us.”

  “I cannot go there,” Vanni told her stubbornly. “I have made my home with my father’s people, and here I will stay. The King did not love me enough to make me an elf, and I suffered much to become a man.”

  “That is not true,” Il Dolce Mio protested. “If you had been a proper boy, you could have become an elf. But you were full of mischief and tr
ouble. Love, in and of itself, had nothing to do with it.”

  “Well, Greta is not an elf.” Vanni looked away from them. “She is a girl, and, as such, she must stay here with us.”

  “I know she is girl.” Il Dolce Mio stood up and took Greta’s hand, pulling her up. “But she is almost as tall as me. That means she will soon be a woman, and she will be needing a husband such as myself.”

  Greta’s mouth fell open in surprise.

  “Furthermore,” Il Dolce Mio continued, “I am looking for a bride, and I have been considering taking a human woman as my beloved. A king, you know, must have a queen.”

  Vanni leapt to his feet and stood facing the King.

  “You have lost your mind, Your Grace!” he shouted at him. “Greta will be as tall as me when she is ready to be wed and she will be my wife, not yours!”

  “I have more to offer,” Il Dolce Mio told him evenly. “I am a king. I have my own kingdom, and if she comes to live with me, she will not grow any taller. I will see to it. And her father will be pleased.”

  “That’s preposterous!” Vanni advanced on him. “I will not hear of it!”

  “Wait! Wait!” Greta said and placed one hand on each of them. “I’m not ready to be married. I’m only a child. My father tells me so every day. And I have to go to school and everything, first.”

  “It makes no difference what your father says right now. Fathers say all sorts of things they do not mean, or things do not quite make sense. My father, Lucius, is a prime example as Vanni can attest to the truth of my words,” Il Dolce Mio told her. “If I ask for your hand, I am quite sure he will approve.”

  “Oh really?” Vanni scowled at the King. “Then just go on and ask him. See what happens.”

  “I do not have to ask him,” the King told him indignantly. “My father, the King, will ask him.”

  “Oh really? And where is your father, the King? I heard he is a murderer, and he tried to kill the King of England!”