Thoth, the Atlantean

by Brendan Carroll

  Mark backed up and sat on the hearth beside the wolfhounds. One of them laid his big head in his lap immediately, expecting ear scratches, which he provided absently while he stared openly at the son of the Healer.

  Konrad and Levi resumed their seats as well.

  “It was beautiful. I love this time of year in Scotland. The Ritter has been telling me that there is trouble. Something to do with the Prophet’s wife and son?”

  “Yes, but I believe it has been resolved,” Mark Andrew told them. “Lemarik had a talk with the boy. He was simply distressed and certainly Ruth was under a great strain.”

  “You saw Luke Andrew?” Konrad asked him.

  “Yes, just before I left. We missed our plane.” Mark glanced at the computer. “I suppose you will have to do the whole thing all over.”

  “You are going to America?” Levi narrowed his eyes, which seemed to glow with an inner light that was somehow disconcerting.

  Mark imagined that the room dimmed a bit when the priest squinted at him. His hair was long. A very unusual thing as well. All of Simon’s boys kept their hair cut short like their father. All of them had the same silky, blonde hair that fell across their foreheads, straight and wispy, but Levi’s hair was thick and golden with waves evident in it though it was pulled back in a simple ponytail at the nape of his big neck. Already, he dressed in the black suit and collar of the church. Certainly he would be able to coerce confessions from almost anyone. Especially the ladies in the congregation. Mark Andrew cringed at the irreverent thought. Levi would have problems. He also showed signs of a heavy beard. He wondered what Simon thought of this one and further why he had never mentioned Levi very much in passing.

  “Yes, we have business in New York.” Mark cast a dark look at Konrad, but the Knight of the Apocalypse was staring at the priest. It was quite obvious that he had told him nothing.

  “I would request to accompany you.”

  Mark’s mouth fell open in surprise.

  “Why?” he asked and met Konrad’s startled gaze.

  “You are seeking the Emerald Tablets. You are going to dig up the box that held the golden book of the Mormons.” Levi waved one big hand casually as if this was common knowledge. “You realize that there are other things in the box.”

  “Other things?” Konrad frowned at him.

  “Yes. Artifacts from Jerusalem. From the Temple of Solomon,” Levi answered.

  “How do you know this? How did you know we were going there and how did you know what we were going for?” Mark demanded. “Who told you?”

  “That is unimportant, Uncle Mark. There is an evil which I have seen under the sun,” Levi quoted from Ecclesiastes. “What is important is that we retrieve these artifacts and return them here before the Ancient Evil finds them and uses them to his own designs.”

  “My God! Whattair ye talkin’ aboot?!”

  Mark Andrew dumped the hapless hound on the rug in front of the hearth when he stood up.

  “I’m talking about Jozsef Daniel,” Levi lowered his voice slightly, but it still seemed to boom inside the library. “He knows of the Merovingian bloodline. He knows why he failed to open the Ark successfully. My brother, Reuben, bless his soul, thought he was speaking with Luke Matthew when Jozsef Daniel deposited the Prophet’s son in his care. He told him something that he should have kept to himself.”

  “My God!” Mark Andrew pressed one hand to his forehead and turned about expecting to see the portrait of Lucio and Meredith above the fireplace for some reason. Instead, a pastel portrait of a flowering meadow was there. “What did Reuben tell him?”

  “He told him that I would be the one to open the Ark. He told him that Louis Champlain’s key would be necessary to open it safely and that I would be the one to do it. You see? I have a vested interest in the success of your mission. The Ancient Evil will be after me, the Golden Key and the ephod. He knows something of the breastplate and the urim and the thummin. It is well documented that the breastplate, the ephod and the urim and thummin were all in the stone box that Joseph Smith uncovered in Manchester New York. You believe that the Emerald Tablets of Thoth, the Atlantean are there as well. What I don’t understand is how the box came to be there in the first place, but that is ultimately unimportant as well.”

  “The urim and thummin?” Konrad frowned. “But that simply means light and perfection. The high priest was to don the breastplate with the stones of the twelve tribes on the front and was to wear the urim and thummin under the breastplate before approaching the Mercy Seat! How could one put light and perfection in a stone box? I had always thought that it meant that the priest had to be perfect in every way and full of the light of God and perfection of spirit.”

  “Anyone can attain the light and perfection for a short time, Sir.” Levi turned his unbearably bright eyes on the dark Knight. “A truly penitent man coming from confession and communion could qualify in that respect for at least a few seconds until he had his first carnal thought. The use of the Dragon’s Blood can invoke the same condition for a short period, but no man born of woman can sustain the state of light and perfection long enough to open the Ark and minister to the Children of Israel in the presence of Yahweh without risking immediate destruction. The urim and thummin is necessary to sustain this state of grace. It is why it was worn inside the breastplate. Like the Ark, it was not to be seen by the people. It has lain hidden in darkness for thousands of years and yet, it has not diminished.”

  Konrad leaned his forehead against his palm and closed his eyes. This mission was not going to be as easy as he had hoped. If what Levi said was true, then certainly he would not qualify to handle such a powerful set of forces. Light and perfection had never been part of his makeup and he doubted that Mark Andrew could lay a claim to these attributes. Surely the priest sitting next to him showed outward signs of possessing them. Konrad had never seen such a man in his life. He could almost feel his presence with his eyes closed.

  “Well!” Mark Andrew turned around again and gazed into the priest’s eyes. “I must accept that this is the Will of God. You have come here from wherever you have been and you offer your services in good faith. Never have I failed to trust the wisdom of your father in regards to matters of spiritual nature. If your father agrees, then I will take you with me and may God have mercy on our endeavors.”

  “I will ask Him for it straightaway,” Levi said and smiled.

  Mark Andrew left the library and went upstairs to his room. He threw his clothes all over the room as he went and sat down in the old, cast-iron tub and turned on the water. At first he tried to resist the temptation of adding some of the vanilla bath foam to the hot water, but was unable to refrain from this one pathetic little sin of indulgence. The smooth aroma enveloped him along with the steam from the water and he laid his head back on the side of the antique tub, closing his eyes and trying to imagine Meredith there with him.

  Just to hear her say his name once more would have been more precious than anything and he still did not understand why. She had brought him nothing but sorrow and trouble and even now he loved her beyond comprehension. Most likely because she had always been just out of reach even when she had been in the water with him. Of all the sins he had committed with her, only the very worst had ever come close to consummating the thing that hovered just on the edge of his consciousness. It had always been there like the longing to return to a time past, the unquenchable desire to do something more, to take the final step, but what the final step was, he had no idea. As he sat alone in his bath, he was just as close to it as he had ever been when he’d actually held her in his arms. Impossible. Impossible to go back. To go back to where? To when?

  Below him, the others returned from Luke Matthew’s home. Ruth and Omar had stayed with the Knight and Merry and they had kept Bari there with them in order to plan their trip back to New Babylon. Konrad was amazed to see Simon’s son literally envelope his father in his arms as if he were a child, hugging him and lifting him from the floo
r.

  Simeon and his daughter, Greta, were overjoyed to see the priest and the babble and hubbub was indescribable as he hugged first one and then the other. He picked Greta up as if she were a toddler and kissed both her cheeks before setting her down again. He approached his Grandfather with more dignity, hugging him and kissing him as well, but without the same unleashed enthusiasm. Konrad attributed this to the Grand Master’s station as well as the long-standing problem concerning the banishment of Reuben. All of Reuben’s younger brothers had literally worshipped him and thought him incapable of doing wrong. Edgard d’Brouchart had sacrificed a great deal in sending his eldest grandson into exile.

  Lucio stayed long enough to introduce Vanni to Levi and then left them. Konrad made his excuses and left the family to their business. He wanted to get upstairs and make arrangements for the trip to America. He would make reservations for three. Levi would have to work out the details of his trip with his father and Mark Andrew. Konrad felt that they would need all the help they could get and knew quite well that God had intervened once again in order to assure that Levi would arrive in time to go with them. If the crisis with Ruth had not occurred when it had, they would have already been on their way to America without the priest.

  It was times like these that he wished desperately that he could talk to his father. His father had been an immense storehouse of Arcana and he had never realized the treasure that had been his father’s mind until it was almost too late. He sat down in front of his computer and picked up one of the antique floppy disks on which his father had recorded vast amounts of priceless research, meticulously indexing it, cross-indexing it and arranging it all in perfect order. Konrad had pieced together part of an old computer he’d found in Ramsay’s attic with his newer model in order to transfer the data to a better format on hard disc and flash chips, simultaneously storing it in a secondary hard drive, with two more backups in cyberspace where he would have instant access to the entire library anywhere in the world. He quickly arranged passage to New York for the following evening and then pulled up his father’s work concerning the ephod and breastplate, hoping to find something useful about the urim and thummin with which he could arm himself at least with more knowledge and be able to converse with Levi intelligently; however, he quickly learned that not even his father knew about the material properties of the urim and thummin. He mentioned them only in passing and then only referring to them as a state of being, not something one could hold in one’s hand or wear on one’s body. Most likely, the former Knight of the Apocalypse had never seen the need to delve further into the subject.

  He sat chewing his lip thoughtfully for several minutes before sending off a coded message to Lavon de Bleu, requesting a thorough check of the Order's archives regarding the urim and thummin and any related materials.

  Chapter Seven of Twenty

  For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities

  Mark Andrew’s sleep was interrupted by an urgent pounding on his door and the frantic voice of the Italian calling his name. He turned over slowly and looked at the clock beside his bed. Just after midnight. Now what?! He rolled from the bed and discovered that he had not dressed after the bath. Highly unusual. He dragged the sheet with him to the door and opened it. Lucio rushed inside, tripping over the sheet, ripping it from his hands.

  “A thousand pardons!” Lucio grabbed up the sheet and threw it back to the Knight of Death. “You must get dressed. Vanni is gone! I sent him up to bed three hours ago and stayed downstairs to speak with Simon and Levi. When I went up to check on him, he was gone. Climbed out the window! If he tries to go back to the underworld…”

  Mark Andrew was already in his closet, searching for his clothes, remembering why he had gone to bed in the altogether: He had no clean clothes. He found only his black Templar uniform. Everything else was either packed in his suitcase or crumpled in the laundry basket in the bath. He had only left out his traveling suit and his wardrobe had grown very sparse over the past several years.

  “Dammit! Dammit!” He flung the uniform, still encased in its plastic wrapper, on the bed and ripped the flimsy stuff off of it. He’d not worn it since he’d lived here with Meredith… how many years ago now? He plucked at the mantel absently.

  Lucio frowned at him. “Tis not a formal affair, Brother. Just a search for a missing boy, don’t you think…”

  “Never moind!” Mark pulled on the black undershirt and then the surcoat. He would forgo the chain mail. “Do you think he would try to make it through the cave in the hay meadow?”

  “It’s sealed. I don’t know what he would do. I just met him.” Lucio shook his head.

  “Have you told the others?”

  “Simon is out there and Levi and Simeon. I think they told Stephano and Planxty and some of the others. I asked them not to disturb His Grace. I don’t want any more trouble with him. I want to take Vanni back to Italy with me and this will not multiply his odds!”

  “Roight,” Mark agreed as he pulled on the black trousers and searched under the bed for his boots. “Well, he’s probably off in the woods playing his drum. Tonight is the full moon. He would be missing his friends. There would be plenty of celebrating in the Center tonight.”

  “Ahhh. I didn’t think of that.” Lucio nodded his head vigorously. “Perhaps you are right.” He snatched the mantel from the bed and helped Mark Andrew put it on. “It’s a bit chilly out there, Brother.”

  Mark fastened the clips and then reached under the mattress for his golden sword. He would not wear the uniform without it.

  “Surely you won’t need that!” Lucio frowned at him as they hurried out the door.

  “Who knows? Bettar safe than soory.”

  They met Gil in the rear hallway.

  “Which way did they go?” Mark Andrew asked the cook.

  “Master Simon went toward the chapel. His sons went east toward the highway,” the cook told them and frowned at the sight of Sir Ramsay in the black uniform. “Monsieur Grine and Monsieur Clementi went south past the stables.”

  “Then we’ll go west toward the river,” Mark decided and then stopped at the back door. “Don’t wake anyone else. Make some coffee… wait for us to return. If any of the others come back, tell them to wait for us. If they haven’t found him, we will regroup and plan a more organized search at daybreak.”

  “Oui`, Monsieur le Compte.” The cook saluted him sharply and clicked his heels.

  “And don’t call me that. I am not a count! And this is not th’ bloomin’ French Foreign Legion!” he snapped as they exited the back door. “Why does he think I am a count?!” he asked no one in particular.

  “Who knows?” Lucio followed after him, zipping up his jacket against the cold breeze. “Maybe it’s because your father was a nobleman.”

  “My father was a fool,” Mark Andrew muttered and pulled his cloak tighter about him. “You go along upstream to the bridge and search down. I’ll go down to the old mill and search up. We'll meet halfway.”

  They split up just past the brick patio under the light of the full moon. He could hear Lucio calling his son’s name before he reached the tree line.

  The French Chef stood in the back door watching the Knights disappear into the gloom beyond the mercury vapor lamps hidden among the flower beds lining the bricked patio. The moon was very bright and he could make out their dark shapes far out onto the meadow. He turned on his heel and went to the library, closing the door behind him and locking the bolt. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and punched in a series of numbers as he drew back the drapes in order to watch the front lawn.

  “Monsieur de Goth?” he spoke in a low voice when the phone was answered on the other end. “I have some very interesting news for you, sir. Most peculiar! I believe you should come to Scotland as soon as possible.” The chef began speaking rapidly in French.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  “Why are we doing this?” Schweikert asked Jozsef Daniel a
s he followed him about the lower reaches of the old fortress. His new Master was methodically turning off all of the electronic surveillance equipment, the alarms, the floodlights, everything that made the place safe from intruders.

  “We don’t want to scare them away.” Jozsef smiled at him.

  “Who?” Ernst looked about. They were alone here.

  “My acolytes.”

  “Your acolytes?”

  “Yes. They will come to me tonight. They will know me for what I am and they will come to pledge their fealty to their new Lord and Master.”

  “Oh.” Schweikert nodded. His Master was gathering a new following. He should have known to expect it. He had wondered that Jozsef lived in this great old place all alone.

  “Tonight there will be a great gathering in the forest. Once the woman has unleashed the power of the blood on them, they will come.”

  “Ahhh.” Schweikert’s face lit up. “The woman in the forest!”

  “Yes. She will bring her people here.” Jozsef waved one hand about the darkening halls of the old ruin. “We will rebuild this place to its former glory. From here we will launch our new crusade.” Jozsef’s eyes were gleaming.

  “What of the Holy Blood? Do you intend to do anything about that?”

  Jozsef had made no further comments on the little vial of blood that Schweikert had presented him with on his arrival.

  “I intend to do something about everything,” Jozsef told him. “I know where everything is essentially. It is just a matter of gathering it all together and putting it to good use.”

  “Will we be going after any of it ourselves?” Abaddon was itching for something to do. He was already bored with this tropical paradise.

  “Some of it,” Jozsef said as he switched off the last of the flood lights that lit up the outer walls at dusk every day. “Don’t be so impatient, my friend. All things in due time. I will make no more mistakes.” Jozsef put his arm around Abaddon’s shoulders and ushered him toward the stairs leading up to the parapets. “I want to show you something, my friend.”