All That Is Fallen

by Brendan Carroll

  “God! Where is your God?” Abaddon asked. “He has delivered the great Adar into my hands. Where are his brothers now? Who will come to save him this time? You know nothing, little one.”

  One of the soldiers brought a bottle of water and the dark angel added a small pinch of the brown powder to the liquid. He recapped the bottle and shook it up.

  “What do you expect to do with that?” She asked him.

  “You are right about one thing.” Abaddon stepped forward and took Mark’s chin in his hand. “He is dangerous, even dead. This will help to calm him down when he wakes up.” He forced the Knight’s mouth open and poured the water in, clamped it shut again and held it. Mark made no move to resist. The water simply stayed where it was and then oozed out between the dark angel’s fingers.

  “Sir!” One of the soldiers, a lieutenant by rank. “He’s dead. Dead men cannot drink!”

  “He doesn’t have to drink it.” Abaddon shook his head. He let go of Mark’s chin and held one of his eyes open, pouring more of the liquid into the unseeing eye. He repeated the performance with the other eye and then both ears.

  The lieutenant took a step back and watched this procedure with trepidation. Defiling the dead was not part of his orders. They had come here to take back hostages. That was the mission. The general frightened him and the woman did not seem overly concerned that she was now their prisoner. She looked at him with nothing more than contempt in her eyes. He knew who this was before them on the altar. He had heard the stories and legends about the Knight of Death. The man’s reputation was well known even in New Babylon and it was whispered that many of the Fox soldiers were defecting and making their way to England and Scotland to join the King’s forces there.

  The young lieutenant felt that they were making a terrible mistake. He had checked their captive personally. No pulse. No respiration. The blow on his head had been fatal and the wound no longer bled. Dead men do not bleed. The heart does not pump blood. They had killed him and now this man who terrified him even more than the Emperor of Persia Major, was speaking of him as if he would simply wake up.

  The general turned to face him suddenly.

  “Is there a problem, Lieutenant?” He narrowed his eyes at the young officer.

  “No, sir!”

  “Pick him up! Take the woman to the van.” The general waved one hand. “We must be away from here before sunrise.”

  The soldiers fell to following his orders. Sophia got up of her own volition and walked toward the doors. The Lieutenant hung back with the general.

  “How will we get them out of the country, sir?” He asked. He had been given very little information. There were very few motorized vehicles on the highways and many checkpoints. The villagers who occupied the small settlements were suspicious of everyone and everything. The Templars were everywhere now. It seemed that the whole of the remaining population of this region had joined the Order in some form or fashion. Ramsay’s estate was the center of Scotland’s government. They had taken Ramsay, himself. Surely the general could not hope to escape with his body.

  “You worry too much.” The general smiled at him. “There are always alternatives.”

  “Yes, sir.” The lieutenant nodded uncertainly.

  Abaddon took the wheel of the van and drove around the chapel into the woods instead of heading back toward the highway. They bounced over the root-filled ground between the trees and stopped on the edge of a small bluff overlooking a picturesque stream. The general got out and ordered the men to bring Ramsay as he started down the moss-covered banks. When they reached the banks of the stream, Abaddon turned back and indicated a dark opening in the cut bank.

  “What is that?” The lieutenant squinted in to the gloom. The cave yawned black and forbidding in the graying light of dawn.

  “That is our way out, Lieutenant.” The general started up the bank, pushing the woman ahead of him. The men struggled up the loose, damp soil after him, their feet slipping on the moss-covered rocks.

  One of the soldiers produced chemical light sticks from his pack and handed them to the men. The eerie blue glow showed fear written the soldiers’ faces as they eyed the dark cave.

  Schweikert pulled his pistol from the holster and looked about at them. “Anyone who wishes to resign, speak now and I shall resign him,” he told them darkly. They glanced at each other and none spoke or moved. “Good! Now be careful in there. Stay together! Don’t fall behind or you’ll be left.”

  Abaddon pushed Sophia into the opening and followed after her. The lieutenant glanced around at his men and then plunged in after the general, holding his light stick high in front of him. The smell of mold and earth assaulted his nose.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  Michael stood in the pebbled drive looking up at the Chapel of Glessyn. The sight before his eyes was completely unbelievable. Angels… Lucifer’s warriors were swarming all over the ancient structure. They were on the roof, atop the bell tower, hanging out the windows and going to and fro through the open front doors. Several more of them, along with a number of Knights and apprentices were combing the grounds about the church for clues to what might have become of Mark Ramsay and Sophia Cardinelli. The two horses they had ridden out of the barn the night before were grazing in the grasses of the meadow beyond the line of oak trees behind him. The two wolfhounds, bounded up and down the steps to the chapel, sniffing and snuffling about everywhere. They had found signs of a struggle under the trees on the bare ground.

  Deeper than normal hoof prints where one of the horses, Mark’s mare, had stopped suddenly and then pranced about before galloping away. Scuff marks in and around the hoof prints. Footprints of at least a half dozen men and the smaller prints of Sophia in the same area. Tire tread marks in the softer earth at the end of the parking lot, showed where the vehicle had left the church and driven into the woods. They had found the abandoned truck, parked in the woods and many more footprints and signs that Sophia was awake, but Mark Andrew was not. The vehicle was unmarked. There were no clues as to whom the occupants might have been. Not a shred of evidence. No VIN’s, no licenses, nothing. Not even a scrap of paper could be found in the vehicle, but vehicles were very rare these days and gasoline was even scarcer. The general consensus was that it had been a Fox operation sent by Jozsef Daniel.

  Lucifer walked quickly down the steps of the chapel, directly toward Michael and the young man stiffened.

  “You will come with us?” The angel chieftain stopped in front of him. Galen scurried toward them from under the trees.

  The question startled him. He had never expected to be given a choice of coming or going. He blinked at the chieftain in surprise.

  “Answer me, my child!” Lucifer snapped at him. “Go or stay?”

  Michael glanced at Galen as the blonde slid to a stop beside him.

  “May I have a moment with Sir d’Ornan?” Michael asked him cautiously.

  Lucifer nodded and then put his hands on his hips, turning about to watch the two young men as they hurried into the church.

  Simon was standing near the altar staring up at the cross as if waiting for the figure of Jesus to talk to him. Everyone else had abandoned the chapel and gone down to the creek bank where the footprints had ended abruptly near the base of a moss-covered bluff.

  “Father!” Michael hurried down the aisle and Simon turned slowly to face him.

  “Oui`?” The Healer looked drawn and tired. They were all tired.

  “Father.” Michael went down on one knee and crossed himself, before lowering his head. “I would like to request permission to go with Lucifer and his warriors and continue my work with them.”

  Simon’s smooth brow creased in a frown and he looked at Galen who shrugged and shook his head slightly. Galen did not want to go back with the angels! He wanted to stay with his father and the other Templars.

  “Michael.” Simon placed one hand on the apprentice’s head. “I cannot give you permission. You should ask your father.”<
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  “You are the only father present, Sir.” Michael looked up at him. “I must go now. I don’t have time to wait for King Ramsay. Lucifer will not wait for me.”

  “You are no longer a child.” Simon told him. “You must make up your own mind. As in the tales of long ago, you must do what God has placed in your heart and fulfill your destiny as a man, asking permission of no man, but of the blessings of the Father and your father.”

  Michael nodded and looked up at him. “Then give me your blessing and I will go.”

  “No!” Galen grabbed his arm and Michael turned his light blue eyes on his ‘cousin’. Galen’s face fell. There was no use arguing.

  Michael stood up, struck the priest on the shoulder lightly and fell back on his knees, crossing himself and bowing his head. “Shrive me, Brother.”

  Simon struck him on the shoulder, made the sign of the cross over him and gave him the blessing he sought and replaced his hand on the long, dark hair on his head.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” Michael began to confess, very quickly listing a number of minor offenses. Simon gave him absolution and he got up again. He hugged Simon briefly and then turned his gaze on Galen.

  “Dammit!” Galen shouted and Simon frowned.

  “Galen.” Michael smiled at him and then hugged him tightly. “Go with God.”

  Galen stood with his mouth hanging open as Michael hurried from the chapel, leaving him alone with Simon.

  “Father!” Galen struck the priest, almost bowling him over in his excitement. “Shrive me and bless me!”

  “Are you sure…” Simon began and Galen fell to his knees crossing himself quickly.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Etceteras, etceteras, etceteras, amen! Say goodbye to my father for me!”

  Before Simon could make the sign of the cross over his head, Galen was gone, racing down the aisle and out the door, reminding the healer very much of his father, Lucio, in his irreverent haste. By the time Simon reached the steps of the chapel, Michael, Galen and Lucifer’s band were gone.

  He caught glimpses of the colorful array of warriors riding across the meadow in the bright morning sun. As he turned, he saw the bedraggled band of Knights returning from their futile search in the woods. Lucifer had already told them that it was useless to search any further for the missing persons. The angel had run his hands over the rough stones and moss near the river bank and smelled the earth at the base of the bluff, pronouncing that there had been an opening here under the cliff not long before and that whoever had taken the Knight of Death and Sophia were out of reach. But Simon had noticed a dramatic change in the demeanor of the chieftain. Lucifer had found more there in the moss than he was willing to admit. Something that had angered him immensely.

  Lucio Dambretti was out in front of the others, jogging toward the chapel.

  “Simon!” He called to the healer. “Tell Galen to come on back to the house. There will be a Council Meeting in an hour, and we’ll decide what is to be done!”

  Simon drew a deep breath and let it out raggedly. He did not relish being the one to break the news to the Italian that his son was gone… again.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  “What is this?” Jozsef Daniel walked around the bed, frowning down at the sleeping Knight. Mark Andrew was curled on his side on the bed. His face was peaceful and serene. The only mark on him was a cut and accompanying bruise on his forehead.

  “He’ll wake up.” Abaddon told him. “I did what you said, Your Grace. He was knocked out by one of my men, and then I put the elixir in him. It was very difficult to steal the stuff, sir. I was almost caught!” He pulled the small wooden box from his pocket and handed it to the ‘Prophet’.

  Jozsef took the box and looked at it as if it were a cobra. He handed it back to the dark angel.

  “Put it in the vault in the lab.” He told him. “How long until he wakes up?”

  “I’m not sure. It could be another day or two. Three days at the very most.” Abaddon assured him. “It will do no good to try to wake him before then. My experience with the one called Champlain proved this out. Each time he suffered death, if he did not awaken within twelve minutes, it was three days.”

  “Hmmm.” Jozsef yanked the cover back and looked at the face of his most deadly enemy on earth. He resisted the urge to take his head on the spot, but he needed him alive and whole. “I suppose you could have done worse. I had hoped for someone a bit more easily handled, but he will have to do. Where is the woman?”

  “She is next door. I have posted guards. Sir! I would like to point out again that it would be wise to have him incarcerated in the basement holding cells. He should be chained. If he is allowed to move freely, we will not be able to keep him here.”

  “I am aware of his skills, Abaddon. We will negotiate with him. Bring the woman here to watch after him. Post four guards outside and leave the door open.”

  “Open?” Abaddon frowned.

  “Yes! Are you deaf? I want them to be able to see what transpires here, but I do not want them in the room. If he stirs, I want to know immediately.” Jozsef turned toward the door. “Perhaps you should tie his hands. We don’t want him disappearing on us.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” Abaddon inclined his head slightly.

  Jozsef left the room and Abaddon gave orders to the soldiers concerning Jozsef’s instructions. He waited as they brought Sophia to the room and shoved her inside. She drew up short at the sight of Abaddon standing near the bed.

  “The Master has ordered you remain here and watch over him.” He told her. “Do not presume to think that your freedom is an advantage. You will be watched.”

  Sophia nodded and then looked down at Mark Andrew. The expression on his face was peaceful and he almost seemed to be smiling.

  “Am I allowed to touch him?” She asked.

  “He will be restrained. You may touch him, but you will not attempt to let him go.”

  She nodded again and looked about the well-appointed room.

  “The bath is through there. You will not close the door, nor will you speak with the guards.”

  Two of the guards appeared with a pair handcuffs and a length of chain.

  “No!” Abaddon caught one of them by the arm. “Two sets! One for each hand. Secure them well apart so that he cannot put his palm together.”

  The second guard pulled another pair of cuffs from his belt and handed them over. They soon had the Knight of Death secured in the bed, on his back with his hands attached to the chain that they passed through the metal bedstead. He was no longer smiling, but frowning as if this situation registered on his brain somehow, though he did not wake up.

  “How long do you intend to keep him like that?” Sophia demanded as Abaddon prepared to leave.

  “As long as necessary.” He told her shortly and disappeared. Two of the guards stood on each side the door. Two more stood across the hall, and positioned themselves so that they could see what transpired within the room.

  Sophia let out a long sigh. She went into the bathroom and brought back a wet cloth and it to clean his face and the wound on his forehead. It was already beginning to heal. This was not going to be easy, but she was glad that they had allowed her to stay with him. As she sat on the bed next to him, she scrutinized his face. He was dreaming. His eyes moved under his lids very quickly and he made tiny little sounds that were barely audible. She dragged a heavy armchair near the bed, used one of the pillows to prop her head up and put her feet on the edge of the bed so she would know if he moved. The night’s trip through the dark caves had been exhausting and she had been pushed, shoved and prodded unmercifully, practically running every step of the way to keep from being dragged. They had allowed her a bath and clean clothes, but Mark was still dressed in the same clothes he had been wearing the night before. No one had come to speak with her until the soldiers had come to bring her here. She closed her eyes and soon drifted into a shallow, uneasy sleep.

  A shor
t time later, a frightened woman dressed in a layered robe, brought her lunch or supper, she was not sure which. It was not bad at all. Roast lamb, rice and a salad. A small loaf of flat brown bread and half a liter of red wine. She requested a bottle of water and the woman simply stared at her before hurrying away again. Sophia set up her meal on the bedside table and found that she was hungrier than she had thought. The last time she had eaten, had been when Lucifer had tried to get her to eat roasted locusts! That meal had been very meager.

  When she finished off the lamb and half the wine, she resumed her seat in the chair and then almost shrieked as she realized that Mark Andrew was looking at her. He was not moving, but simply looking at her from wide clear eyes. She glanced at the guards and then got up slowly, stretching her arms over her head in a yawn, before climbing onto the bed with him. He followed her movements with difficulty as if his eyes would not quite focus on her. They crossed and he blinked and tried to bring them back into focus, searching for her. When he found her face again, he resumed staring at her. His mouth was slightly open and she could hear him breathing. He still did not move and her heart leapt into her throat. Was he paralyzed?

  She maneuvered herself about, blocking his face from the view of the guards and leaned close to him, propping her head on her hand.

  “Mark?” She barely whispered his name. He frowned very slightly and his vision seemed to go awry again for several seconds as he tried to find her face. It seemed that her voice startled him. She touched his face with her fingers and he drew his head away jerkily. Not paralyzed, but unable to control his movements very well. He blinked several times and then resumed the strange stare. There was no sense of recognition registering in them.

  “Mark?” She tried again and he repeated the same action as before and her heart sank. He rolled his eyes back and seemed to be looking at the headboard above his head. He moved one leg slightly and she heard one of the guards say something. They had seen it. Footsteps sounded in the hall.