The Jealous God

by Brendan Carroll

  The homecoming was almost as dreary as the weather. Merry cried and Luke tried to console her, drying her with the towels provided by the monks in attendance in the keep. They huddled together on the hearth in the den while Mark ditched his cloak and ruffled his hair with a towel. The monks set about building a big fire in the hearth in an attempt to dispel the cold.

  The corridor outside the room started filling up with apprentices, and servants, and members of the Order of the Red Cross of God. Each one anxious to hear news of the outside world, news of the Grand Master’s party, news of England and Scotland, and other places. The babble of voices became a dull roar as the servants replaced the monks and set out hot coffee and food for the bedraggled Knights.

  Peter Rushkin pushed his way through the crowd and admonished them to be quiet. He entered the den and closed the door behind him before greeting Mark Andrew with the Templar kiss.

  “Sir Ramsay!” he said. “We are in grave peril here. The king’s patrols have been coming to the island almost daily asking questions about you and your brother. If they learn you are here, they will come in force to take you. You know of the charges against you? Is it true Mr. Grine and Mr. Clementi are dead?”

  “Aye. Tis the truth,” Mark Andrew nodded and dropped wearily into one of the chairs. “But what charges are brought against us?”

  Peter poured coffee for the two brothers before taking a seat on one of the chairs.

  “The King has put a grand reward on both of your heads. He claims you tried to kill him, and you are both murderers. You are both wanted… dead or alive, but, of course, preferably, he wants you alive for obvious reasons,” he told them.

  Merry clung to Luke Matthew; she would not be put out of the room this time.

  “It would figure, he would do that.” Mark Andrew looked into the cup of coffee. “Have you heard from the Master?”

  “No. Not recently. The last we heard, they were on their way home, but travel, as you know, is difficult. We are expecting them any time now.”

  “Good.” Mark looked at his brother. “There is really nothing we can do until they arrive. We will have to learn what they know about the progress of the war. I have seen some things, but it would be better to tell them in Council. I would suggest, we all get some rest. Tomorrow, I will need your assistance at the stables. At sunrise. Perhaps, the storm will have passed, and it will be easier. You will need to post as many guards as you can spare on the stables. I will do what I can to protect us all.”

  “As you wish, Sir.” Peter frowned. “What shall I tell the others?” The Chaplain Brother looked about and then lowered his voice. “Are you sure you should stay here, Sir? You have put us all in danger.”

  Mark snapped his head up and glared at the man in consternation. He would not be put out of his own land. Not now, not ever.

  “Tell them to go home and wait. And…” Mark’s attention was riveted on Merry. “Merry? Have you seen Bari Kadif lately?”

  “Not today.”

  “Send some of the men to stand guard over him,” Mark told the Chaplain Brother gruffly. “I do not want him out of his quarters until further notice!”

  “He is already under house arrest, Sir.” Peter was puzzled by the vehemence of the Knight’s words.

  “Just make sure he does not move without permission. I will see him tomorrow.” Mark Andrew stood up. He gathered a handful of the sandwiches on the tray, a tankard of beer and headed for the door. “Is my room available, or would you prefer me to sleep in the stable?”

  “Of course not, Sir. I did not mean to offend you. I just thought…” Peter followed him.

  “Luke!” Mark cut him off. “It would be better if you and Meredith stay here tonight. Is there another room they can use?” He turned to Peter again.

  “Sir Dambretti’s room is empty.” Peter gave up. He would never get along with the Chevalier du Morte.

  “Good. Send these people home. Let us get some rest.” Mark nodded at the door, and Peter opened it. He stepped into the crowded corridor and the men fell back to allow him to pass.

  Luke Andrew stepped in front of him at the foot of the stairs. He looked disheveled, and it was obvious du Morte Junior had been drinking… heavily. He often remained in his room for days at a time, and no one except Galen and Michael seemed to care.

  “Father.” Luke smiled crookedly at him. “It is good to have you home.”

  “You may not think so tomorrow,” Mark told him solemnly. “Come upstairs with me.”

  Luke Andrew followed his father up the winding stairs and down the balcony. Luke opened the door for him, and then closed it with a resounding boom. Luke Matthew stopped in the great hall and looked up at the closed door. Merry still clung to his arm while Galen Zachary and Michael Ian trailed along after the man, they both considered their father.

  “We’ll go and fetch some clothes for you,” Michael told him when he finally turned to his sons.

  “Thot wud be noice, lads,” Luke said, and then clasped them both in a tremendous hug. These two were his sons, though, he never understood the why or the how, he had come about having such a strange family. Looking at Michael was like looking in the mirror now, but Galen looked like his mother and only the closest examination would have told he was the Golden Eagle’s son.

  The two young men hurried away, and Luke walked slowly up the stairs with one arm wrapped around Merry. She could not take her eyes off of him, could not believe he was home. Catharine had been right, the news they had brought was sad and unsettling, but her husband looked to be as well as ever. Her thoughts of Catharine de Goth had been completely lost the moment she had seen him in the yard. Now, she was bursting with the urge to tell him of the exchange between herself and the woman in the chapel, but somehow no words came. How could she tell him? For once in her life, she thought it might be more useful to remain quiet. Just remain quiet. She felt she was on the verge of a breakthrough, and that, if Luke Matthew learned what she was about to do, he would forbid her from seeing Catharine again. Remain quiet. It was like a small voice in her head telling her over and over, it was time to remain quiet. She had rarely ever heard voices in her head, and never had she ever had the thought to remain quiet.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  “Lugalabdubur? Lugalabdubur,” Luke mumbled the thirty-sixth name of Marduk as he left his father’s room sometime after midnight. He had never had such a long talk with Mark Ramsay in his entire existence. His father had told him things had made his head spin, first one way and then the other. Just when he’d thought he’d heard it all, and seen it all, and knew it all; he found, he knew nothing. He had learned in the underworld his father was not much different than himself in many ways, just older… a great deal older. He, like every other son, had thought his ‘old man’ just that… old! But, Mark Andrew was not old, not really. In fact, Luke now felt older than his father. The information he had absorbed from the head of King Ramsay was only now beginning to congeal and make sense. He had received only bits and pieces from the King. Very little of it had ever made sense until now.

  Mark had told him about the Atlanteans and the world before the Great Cataclysm. He had told him about his life in Khem where he had been sent to teach men about the Light and about God, the Creator. He told him about the significance of the Emerald Tablets of Thoth, the great truths to be found in the Hermetic teachings. He told him about the heresy of the Catholic Church; and the attempted genocide of the true Christian faith by the Church in Rome, the decadence of the popes through the ages, and the intermingling of pagan practice with Christian doctrine. He further explained the true origin of the People of God, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He told him of how he had come to Jacob in a dream and tried to teach him what he should know, and how Jacob had fought with him and lost. Then, he had told him about the Merovingians, and the Cathars, and the Visigoths, and the Bogomils; and how they had fled from place to place as they searched for peace and a place to simply worship the Creator
as they knew in truth.

  He even expounded a bit on Mohammed, and how his teachings had been skewed and undermined and twisted by his followers. Until the possibility of reconciliation between Muslims, Christians, and Jews seemed an impossible pipe dream. But, when Luke had asked him about Jozsef Daniel and the crystal skulls, Mark had fallen silent. These things were even beyond the knowing of the Great Thoth of Atlantis. In all his wanderings and delving into secret things of the beyond, that place where darkness and chaos reigned since from before time itself, had eluded him. Even Uriel did not know the true nature of the creatures that populated the realms beyond the Seven Gates.

  Luke was left exhausted by the enormous revelations his father poured out to him in the course of few hours. His last question had been quite selfish. He had asked where and how he, Luke Andrew Ramsay, fit into the picture. And, again, his father had no answer for him; except to say, he had never planned to have a son. Not Adalune Kadif. Not Luke Matthew. Not Ian McShan. Not John Paul. Not Luke Andrew. He had not foreseen these developments.

  When he had fled from Marduk the second time, and come to Scotland for the last time as Myrddyn, he had sought to create for himself a new life. He had never figured out what he had done wrong that had caused him to be born a twin rather than just one. When he had been born as Myrddyn, he had been born to a ‘virgin’ who had almost been killed as a result of his birth. Only his own magick had saved his mother and himself, in that time so long ago, when the people had sought to kill her for witchcraft. It was not his mother who had been the witch, but he, who had been a ‘sorcerer’. He, who had protected the Holy Bloodline through Arthur.

  Luke Andrew could not believe it. He had learned many things about his father, but now he had it from the old ‘horse’s mouth’ so to speak. Mark even expressed his appreciation concerning the discovery he had made about the crystal skulls’ origins. Not even his father had known they came from within human heads… special human heads. First, the Skull of Sidon had been made to reveal its true nature by Luke’s intervention. Then, Saint Lucia’s head had proven to be another of them. Then, the head of Bran the Blessed had turned out to be yet another. It was no wonder the skulls showed no signs of workmanship. It was no longer a mystery how they had been ‘carved’ to the shape of human skulls. They had not been carved at all. They had formed inside the heads of deceased demi-gods, saints, and other mystical creatures. Luke did not exactly know what to call them.

  The overall tone of his father’s discourse had frightened him as well. He had never seen Mark Ramsay drink Scotch, and cry like a baby, and it had sobered him in a profound way, watching his father get drunk while he remained dry. These things did not fit the image he had of the Knight of Death. Whatever had happened in Scotland to Luke Matthew and his father must have been extraordinary indeed. The weeping and drinking had not been an expression of self-pity, but rather seemed more like a profound sadness or despair, a release of anguish and grief. Perhaps, desperate mourning would have been a more apt description. His father elucidated a number of things concerning his job as assassin, and then recited a long list of persons who had met their ends at the edge of the golden blade, giving tiny blurbs of biography with each name. It was the last thing he had expected from the Prince of the Grave, the King of Terrors. Remorse. Regret. In the end, Luke had been relieved to learn, it had been the deaths of Planxty Grine and Stephano Clementi that had brought his father to this pass.

  If they lost Mark Ramsay, what would they have? What would happen to them? Where would they go? Even the Hesperides would fall if Jozsef Daniel had his way. When his father finally stopped talking, he offered Luke the opportunity to speak or ask questions, granting him a sort of candid interview. Something, again, Luke had never expected to enjoy. Luke was a bit reticent about taking advantage of his father’s weakened state, but his curiosity about many things overruled his better judgment.

  Finally, Luke told him about the skull of Santa Lucia, and their bumbling attempt to bring it to the island to hide it. Mark almost seemed about to explode with anger at first, but after a few moments, he calmed down again. He asked if there was no sign at all of who might have taken the skull from the round tower. Luke had told him he and Michael and Galen had searched endlessly for it, but there was no sign of it anywhere; and he had been unable to learn anything, even using the scrying dish in the small chamber where the skull had been concealed. Mark embraced him warmly and admonished him to never do anything like that again without consulting with him beforehand, no matter what the circumstances or conditions might be. His father felt sure Abaddon had taken it. Jozsef would now have two skulls and the Urim and Thummin.

  As Luke stumbled down the balcony to his room at the far end of the hall, he felt ill and shaken. All eleven of the skulls in his father’s possession were now in the stables on this very island. A most disconcerting thought. Luke had assumed the skulls had been taken to a vastly more protected location than this place, but his father had also told him of the home he had made for his ‘mother’ in the Seventh Gate, and how Ernst Schweikert, AKA Abaddon, had actually gone there snooping about. If the Seventh Gate was not safe, there was no safe haven to be had. Mark had finished by telling his son he intended to take the skulls to Germany, where he would unite with Eduord de Goth in an attempt to restore the balance had been lost when the original skulls had been scattered.

  Jozsef Daniel had the twelfth and thirteenth skulls in his possession, apparently, through his own bungling. When Mark had recovered the skull from Bran’s head, he had brought their total to eleven. The skull of the crucifixion was still atop the fountain. Luke wondered if the Ancient Evil knew it was there. Mark needed a twelfth skull. He needed one more female and Saint Lucia’s head would have sufficed. Bran could serve as the male. The matrix called for twelve females and one male head. One male head. The information his father had imparted to him clearly said ‘head’ not ‘skull’.

  There in the apex, set I the crystal, sending the ray into the time-Space, drawing the force from out of the ether, concentrating upon the gateway to Amenti. This was definitely a reference to how the first fountain was made, and the first crystal had been placed atop it by Thoth. Leave thou thy body as I have taught thee. Pass to the barriers of the deep, hidden place. Stand before the gates and their guardians. Command thy entrance by these words: I am the Light. In me is no darkness. Free am I of the bondage of night. Open thou the way of the Twelve and the One, so I may pass to the realm of wisdom.

  If only he could find the answer and help his father, just once he would like to be the one. Just once he would like to hear his father say ‘Well done, Luke… my son.’

  But it was not an easy task. He had become quite adept at leaving his body. That was easy. Controlling his journeys, outside the physical constraints of the flesh… that was something altogether different. He would need to learn which of the skulls would be necessary to complete the pattern. Eduord de Goth also had a skull. That would mean there were fifteen of them at least. Two of them did not belong, and if one counted the skull inside Jozsef’s head, the count would increase to sixteen. At least, they knew Jozsef’s head did not belong in the circle. The skull of Santa Lucia was most likely the twelfth female skull they needed, and they really had no idea what had happened to it. Mark was almost sure the skull of Sidon did not belong in the matrix. He believed it, too, was male, but Luke did not understand what would keep Jozsef from simply bringing the thirteenth skull to Germany and putting it in place. When he had put this question to Mark, his father had told him, this was why they had to destroy Jozsef Daniel before he could do such a thing. Whatever Jozsef Daniel’s plan was, he had no idea.

  So, all they had to do was take the skulls to Germany in the midst of world-wide chaos, set up a little ritual with the crystal skulls to restore something, he was not quite sure what, and, in the meantime, they would have to destroy Jozsef Daniel. Simple. He fell into his bed and went to sleep immediately. His last lucid thought was he had to find
the mighty Djinni, his brother, and find out what they might do if it all went wrong.

  Chapter Thirteen of Fifteen

  and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit

  Mark Andrew splashed water in his face and peered closely at his reflection in the mirror. The Scotch was gone, Luke Andrew was gone, and the numbing effect of the alcohol was gone as well. The clock on the mantle chimed loudly in the silence of the bedroom showed just past one AM. Everyone should have gone to bed by now, and he needed to cast a bit of magick over the island to protect the skulls from detection at least temporarily. Even here in his bedroom, he could feel their presence. They had been especially active since he had added the head of Bran the Blessed to his collection. Bran’s effect on the ‘ladies’ had been even more profound than the turmoil and uproar that had been caused by the addition of the so-called skull of the crucifixion Simon had sent from France.

  The skull with the hole in its head. The Healer had been unsure if it was a male or a female skull, but Mark Andrew had examined the skull and it had communicated with him. The skull of the crucifixion had been male. The skull of a mystical king of the ancient days. It had not belonged with the others or so he had thought at the time. Now, it would be very difficult to get it back from the fountain if it turned out to be the head they needed. Just as the original skull of Azog-Thoth had not belonged in Jozsef Daniel’s head! He now possessed eleven and Eduord had the twelfth in his castle in Germany. There were twelve stone pedestals in the circular room in the bottom of the castle, ready and waiting for the skulls to be put in place, but there was a missing piece.