The Perfect Sun

by Brendan Carroll

  “I didn’t mean to sound bitter,” he told her. “It could have been no other way. One thing Uncle Mark did to make up, perhaps, for his unfair treatment of his own children was to take an interest in me. He had very little time to teach me, but what time he did have for me, I value beyond measure. I keep every minute of it here,” he placed his open hand on his heart, “and here,” he pointed to his head. “Your brother was a wonderful influence on Galen and I. We worshipped him. It was not fair to you, perhaps. He has changed.”

  “Yes, he has,” she answered curtly. “But I don’t want to talk about Luke and all those specters from the past, Michael. I want to simply gaze at your face and think of this as our time together. Just the two of us… as it might have been. Regardless of what anyone told you or what it may have looked like, I loved you always. I love you now as only a mother can do and I have tried to keep up with your exploits. It must have been completely outrageous… your life with Lucifer, I mean. Think of the adventures you have had, Michael!” Her eyes lit up. “I’m very proud of you and yes, I know, pride is a sin, but I am a sinner. Perhaps someday I will get religion.”

  Michael had to laugh at that idea.

  “No, really,” she smiled and put one of the garlands made of deep, blue wild irises on his head. “Imagine your mother as a nun… an abbess, living in a great old Abby full of secret passages and ghosts and creepy old monks.”

  “That is truly a remarkable image,” he agreed. “I happen to like creepy old places. Perhaps we could start our own religion? I’ll be the creepy old priest and you’ll be Mother Superior.”

  “Hmmm. Yes, I like that,” she scowled and made the sign of the cross over the flowers. “I absolve you flowers of your sins of beauty and laziness. Go now and toil in the fields and your sins will be forgiven.”

  “That is sacrilege,” he said, but smiled. “I, too, have kept up with you. A son should always know where his parents are.”

  “How is your father, Michael?” She asked on a more serious note. “I have always regretted ruining my relationship with him before he ever knew me. I was… young.”

  “But we aren’t going to think of those things now, are we?” He asked and placed another of the strands of daisies around his neck. “Father is well as far as I know. I saw him last with the Templars in the desert. I see that one of them is here under mysterious circumstances. The last time I saw Leonardo von Hetz, he was in the desert. I should like to speak to him.”

  “That’s easy enough to arrange, but I can tell you, he knows nothing. I questioned him immediately when he was found wandering on the beach. He doesn’t even know where he came from… that is, where he was before he found himself on the beach. At least I know where I was and how I got here,” she told him. “We were on our way to the Seventh Gate. Lucio was heading the expedition. I only know that something very odd is going on. I have tried to use the caves. I wanted to find Lucio before… I feel responsible. Lucio, Vanni. Daddy must be angry.”

  “I don’t think so,” Michael told her. “I don’t think he blames you. But I wonder….”

  “What?” She could not constrain herself any longer. She wanted to take him in her arms and hold him and kiss and rock him and tell him how much she regretted never having had the opportunity to hold him when he was a baby, when he was a little boy. She took his hand and pressed it to her face.

  “You are one of them… I mean, like Uncle Mark and Aunt Meredith. Like that. You have the same potential as they… I mean, you have power, Mother. You can do things. You know things,” he stumbled to a halt.

  “I have not developed my potential,” she sighed. “I am working on it. Better late than never.”

  “Can you… see things?” He asked.

  “You mean like in the scrying dish? Like mother used to do?”

  “Yes, like that.”

  “I can… sometimes,” she admitted.

  “Can you see where Galen is? I miss him. I never realized how much I depended on him to need me,” his face turned red and he looked away from her.

  “Everyone needs someone, Michael,” she told him gently. “You have Galen. He is like your brother. His is like your son, perhaps, in some way. I understand your feeling for him and I know that they are pure. You love him. There is no shame in that.”

  “But it isn’t what you think…”

  “You don’t know what I think, Michael,” she smiled and gathered up the flower garlands in the basket. “I promised to bring these back to Armand’s girls. He won’t let them come out here to pick flowers. He is afraid since these things have happened and rightly so.”

  Michael stood and helped her up.

  “I think that you and Galen are brothers at heart. You have known each other all your lives. You knew each other in past lives. You will know each other again in the future, but I will tell you this, Michael. You will live through to that future and Galen will not, but do not tear yourself apart with grief. He will be back. They always come back.”

  “I hope that is not true, Mother,” he kissed her cheek and handed her basket to her. “I should hope that he would not always have to come back here. He suffered a great deal more than I did in the service of the angels. I would have liked to have seen him there at the banquet with Marco Dambretti. Lucio was convinced that Galen was Marco returned.”

  “And for Lucio that was necessary for his sanity… his Will-of-God religion,” Nicole laughed softly. “I love Lucio, Michael. I also love Omar and your father, but I have learned the difference.”

  “Oh, I hope that Omar did not give you a hard time,” Michael looked embarrassed again. He had overheard the results of Mark Andrew’s experiment with Nicole from the corridor. Mark and John Paul had tried to use Nicole to learn what Omar had seen of Huber in the Abyss. Tried to learn if he had seen the others and could tell them where they were.

  Again, Omar had recognized Nicole as his bride and asked her about having children. She had gone along with him, telling him all the things she had told him so long ago when he they had produced Aurora. That had certainly been a well-planned endeavor with good results. If only their marriage could have been as successful as their progeny… but in the end, John Paul had been forced to intervene to save her from the Prophet’s wrath when she had refused his physical attentions. How, he had asked her, could they possible hope to have children if they did not engage in the appropriate behavior? It had been quite embarrassing.

  “How did you know about that?” She narrowed her eyes at him.

  When he didn’t answer, she laughed.

  “So you are not as sinless as I had thought. An eavesdropper. I will have to remember that,” she squeezed his hand. “Michael, I want you to visit with me again. If nothing happens. Tomorrow I’ll come out again and see you. Is that all right?”

  “Of course,” he nodded and then watched as she walked back toward the castle.

  “Bring Leonardo!” He called after her and she turned to wave at him.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  Galindwynne peeked from behind the gray and white plaid window curtains in the sitting room of what had once been Louis Champlain’s bachelor quarters at the Villa in the south of Italy.

  “Is he out there?” Alexander asked from behind her.

  “Yes, of course,” she turned from the window and looked at her beautiful son. She could not believe this was happening to her and wondered if it were some punishment delivered from God for her past transgression. Alex should never have been born. It had not been in the stars…

  Alex was sitting in the middle of the floor again, trying once more to use his powers in order to contact his people or call up some way to get them back to the sidhe in Ireland. He looked almost drab compared to his preferred manner. His feathered cape had been left behind and he had come here dressed only in a white tee shirt and a pair of soft pants that might have been pajamas. His mother theorized that he had been sleeping in his castle when he had been taken and brought to this place by whatever
power was at work. She also theorized that the power in question was a power indeed. Her strongest incantations could not budge them from their places.

  The room was a disaster. Alex kept bringing food and drink, but neither she nor he had done anything to clear out the rubbish afterwards. Plates and glasses, pots and utensils lay scattered about and stacked in the corners. They ate and ate, but the food never ran out even though no one was apparently cooking it. Each day the cafeteria was set up with a variety of dishes that somehow changed throughout the day, and yet, there were no servants here, no cooks, no yard boys, no pool boys, none to carry out the routine maintenance and yet only the dishes in their room remained soiled. Galindwynne began to gather up the dishes, scraping the scraps into a copper pot, stacking the plates and saucers together neatly. It was time to get to the bottom of this thing. It was becoming very clear Edgard had not been responsible for bringing them here or else he would have made a move to carry through with some sort of plan, some sort of reason.

  “What are you doing, Mother?” Alex turned his bright blue eyes on her. “You are disrupting my concentration.”

  “Oh, forgive me, your Highness,” she said and smiled at her arrogant son. “I was just tidying up your mess.”

  “My mess? Some of those are yours, and I beg to remind you, I brought it to you as a courtesy?”

  “Of course, Your Highness. How silly of me,” she muttered. He needed a good beating. Edgard was very remiss in his training of their son. She’d had enough of him, his temper tantrums, and his moaning and groaning.

  “Where are you going?” He got up when she gathered the dishes in her apron and started for the door.

  “Out to talk to him. I’m going to find out what is going on.”

  Alex watched his mother walk across the courtyard to where the Grand Master sat sipping lemonade beneath the shade of one of the umbrella tables. Two of his grandsons splashed in the pool, playing dodge ball with a bright yellow and white striped ball. There seemed to be an endless supply of d’Ornans. He snorted in disgust and resumed his position on the floor. He would not give up. Sooner or later Lugh would hear his calls and come to his rescue. Lugh was still very proud of his beautiful King, who now ruled Ireland proper, as well as, the Tuathan Kingdom below.

  Edgard sat up straighter at the sight of the old woman walking toward him. She wore a long, brown dress, a dark blue shawl, even in the heat, and a white apron. Her gray hair was covered with a white scarf. She carried something heavy in her apron.

  “Ho, Nebo!” She called to him when she was close enough to speak.

  “Galindwynne,” he nodded to her and swallowed hard. It was impossible to believe this withered old woman was the same woman, who made his heart ache after dark every time he glimpsed her magnificent beauty.

  She dumped the plates and dishes with a loud clatter on the tiles, causing Izzy and Philip to cut their volley ball game short. Edgard waved his grandsons away as the old woman sat down at the table across from him. He shoved an empty glass across the table and poured her a glass of lemonade.

  “I’m ready to talk, Edgard,” she said sternly, then took the drink and turned it up. She wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her brown dress. “I am convinced you had nothing to do with this. Can you tell me who did? Is it possible that we could combine our powers and do something about this?”

  “I have no powers, Madame,” he told her. “Whatever has brought us here has clouded our minds, muddled our judgment and stripped us of our powers.”

  “Has anything like ever happened to you before? Is this place real or illusion?” She asked and looked about the brightly lit courtyard. It never rained. The sun always shined here.

  “I think it is an illusion,” he told her. He had not the slightest reticence at sharing what he knew with her. There was no need to fear her. That much had already been established years past. “In fact, some of the people who were here at first, were not real.”

  “Oh? How do you know who is real then?”

  “Some of them have since disappeared. My granddaughter Oriel and my great-grandson, Thaddeus, were both here for a while, and then they were gone. My son, Simon is suffering greatly. If there was anything I could do, I would do it. What I do not understand… what puzzles me most is, why you are here.”

  “I have no idea,” she shrugged. “I cannot remember where I was before I came here. I can remember events from some time ago, but not recently.”

  “Why do you not come out at night and talk to me?” He asked, abruptly changing the subject and leaned his elbows on the table.

  “It could be dangerous.” She eyed him steadily from dark, aged eyes under white brows. Her sun-browned face was nothing but wrinkle upon wrinkle.

  “In what manner?” He asked.

  “Do you not find me attractive in this form, Edgard?” She asked him.

  “You are but an old woman in the light. I might be attracted to you if you had food and water, and I was starving, or if you had medicine, and I was bleeding. I might find you attractive if it was storming, and I had no shelter. I might wish to lay my head in your lap and tell you of my woes and ask for advice, but no, I would not find you attractive in the manner of a man seeking beauty and solace for unrequited love. I am not saying I could not love you as you are now, for I know what lies beneath that wizened countenance. You are a fine woman. A giving soul. A caring soul and one would count himself a fool to hate you,” he answered her truthfully.

  “Ahhhh, the fickleness of lovers is unbounded by treachery at the slightest turn,” she cackled like an old hag. “You would frolic with me in the grass under the light of the stars?”

  “How could anyone resist such an offer?” He returned her smile. “But alas, I dare not. If you were to become disgruntled with me, you might knock me from my horse with a rock and cut off my beautiful head this time.”

  “And so you deserve,” she told him. “I have only just now seen such an arrogance easily surpassing your own, Edgard. Your son, Alexander, is no less a preening peacock than Xerxes or Louis XIV when he was Dauphine of France. How could you have let him stray so far from us? But never mind him. Tell more of this illusory place. Who else is here that I have not seen? Is Adar here or perhaps John Paul?”

  “John Paul has not been seen that I am aware of, but Mark Ramsay was here at the outset. He was seen with Meredith a few times, and then he was gone. She told me she felt she had summoned a facsimile of him in her mind and projected him where he might have been. I don’t know what that means, but she is unable to do it now. He is not here and she believes he never was here.”

  “And what does Miss Meredith think of our plight?”

  “She is very upset. Simon has spent a great deal of time with her, but I’m not sure it is a good idea. He still loves her in a most dangerous manner at some level… or, at least, parts of his manifestation does. I should like to save him from another heartache and his wife is here as well. Bless her heart, Lydia is a good woman. A good wife and thinks nothing of her husband counseling with another woman. Lydia sees Meredith as an old woman,” he laughed. “Another illusion.”

  “We seem to be immersed in them,” Galindwynne mused.

  “I have been giving this a great deal of thought whether you believe it or not,” he said. “I think it has something to do with the curse of Yaldabaoth.”

  “Oh, a curse, is it?” She raised one eyebrow. “And who is this Yaldabaoth? One of your fine feathered friends? A sorcerer?”

  “He is a bit more than that.” Edgard smiled a crooked smile at her.

  It was difficult to believe they had been separated for so long.

  She had missed everything it seemed, but then she had preferred to mind her own business, keeping well out of the affairs of men. He’d not seen her since the goblin wars in old Eire, when the Formorians were driven into the sea. That had been when Alexander had come into being. Poor Alexander, he was meant for better things and had suffered much. No one understood him. Not even his own
mother. “His sort is something beyond the archangels. I am not sure what he might be in reality. A god, surely. A demiurge according to the Gnostics. A demigod. Something akin to it. At any rate, he tried to emulate the Father, the Creator, and he created many things, but they were imperfect. This world was one of those creations and everything on it including you and I. So he is, in effect, our Creator, but he is not The Creator.”

  “Ahhh,” she nodded. “I have wondered at times who could have created such a wreck as this world. It could have been very beautiful.”

  “As can you.” Edgard got up and held out his hand. “Walk with me, Galindwynne.”

  She hesitated briefly and then took the hand. They left the courtyard and passed through the narrow alley between the Admin building and the service building. Soon they were strolling under the ancient olive trees.

  “If you use your imagination just a bit,” he said, “you can think of yourself in ancient Judea when things were much simpler. You know, I understand why du Morte prefers the lonely lowlands of Scotland. He yearns for a simpler time. Simple. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard him say it.”

  “Did you bring me here to discuss Adar, Nebo?” She asked. “He and I made our peace many ages ago. One cannot hold a grudge forever. He was young as we all were in the beginning.”

  “He should have known better. Actions bring consequences.” Edgard looked up through the gnarled branches. “But I must say I’m shocked to my foundations to learn you were the washer at the river. Did you recognize me right away?”

  “I knew you all along.” She nodded.

  “Why did you do it?” He asked.

  “I have no idea. Impulse, I suppose. I didn’t know what would happen. I had no idea Alexander would be the outcome, believe me.”

  “Oh, I believe you,” he picked up a twig and twirled it in his fingers. “What would you have me do, Galindwynne? Should we retire to the Second Gate and let the world go to hell?”

  “If it did, the Second Gate would go with it,” she laughed. “We can’t leave now.”