Levi stood up, abruptly dropping the bottle of beer Paddy had given him. A blonde woman dressed in a long, blue cape sat in one of the chairs on the ornamental bridge, fishing with a cane pole.
“Menaka?” He whispered her name, and then he was running toward her.
Oriel started after him, but Ereshkigal caught her arm. The pressure was light, but the effect was like iron.
“Orri, my dear,” the Queen said, turned her easily and walked toward the yellow and black pavilion. “I want to show you my plans. I would like to have your approval. Konrad tells me you are quite the socialite in the Languedoc. You may have some advice for your mother. I am poorly uneducated as to the likes and dislikes of your extended family. Konrad has been an angel…”
Her mother’s voice buzzed in her ears like bees.
Louis, Konrad and Thaddeus tried to follow, but Ereshkigal waved them away literally. She would spend time alone with her daughter.
“But I want you to know your husband has been a perfect gentleman, by the by, and has been wonderful enough to agree to being our cook and chef,” the Queen continued. “You have only to breathe deeply, my dear, to enjoy what he has already accomplished. Even Nergal has been won over by his skill as a saucier. Do not worry yourself, once bit about his health. I have employed several helpers for him.”
The Queen directed her astonished daughter, who was still suffering the shellshock of her narrow escape at the water nymph pool, to a table under the colorful canopy. Upon the table lay many notes, diagrams, lists and samples, including balls, croquet mallets, badminton racquets, horseshoes, bowling pins, pool floaties, plastic picnic ware, tumblers, colorful paper streamers, little toy instruments and noisemakers, fireworks and all manner of things that would make any family gathering an instant success with all manner of attendees. Orri picked up a nine iron and a yellow tee.
“Do you have a golf course here?” Her daughter asked her first question, and Ereshkigal hugged her tightly.
“We have everything, everything!” The Queen answered her as she stroked her golden curls, much to Oriel’s consternation. The Queen let go of her and sat down on one of the benches, carefully arranging her gown around her. “I have studied the evolution of the outdoor gathering extensively. Your little friend and fellow monarch, King Il Dolce Mio, taught me the value of good research. In fact, I am expecting a visit from him quite soon.”
“The elf king? Here?” Oriel was further appalled and fearful. She knew the elves did not fare well in the Abyss. “Where are we?”
“Why, the Fifth Gate of course,” Ereshkigal told her and picked up a brightly colored water pistol. “These are truly ingenious devices,” she laughed and pulled the trigger, squirting the unsuspecting and unappreciative Plotius in the face with the water. He growled and wiped the water from his nose with one gloved hand. “Plotius! A bit more cheer please. These things are supposed to be fun.”
Plotius made no comment, but put his helmet back on his head and lowered the nosepiece.
“Just think, Orri,” the queen squirted the water at one of the Captain’s soldiers causing the Boggan to howl and run off toward the woods. “If we had used such weapons in the elder days, war would have been much less bloody.”
“And harder to win,” Oriel muttered.
“Ahhh, here is our little king now.” Ereshkigal stood up, but Oriel saw nothing… at first.
She noticed Louis and the others converging on a spot in the center of the playground. They were shading their eyes against the sun, looking away down the meadow. Oriel and the Queen walked out of the pavilion as a distant figure was seen running swiftly up the meadow.
Louis caught the elf as he seemingly collapsed from sheer exhaustion. He was immediately surrounded by the five ‘Berts’.
“The King!” One of them, Louis thought was Dagobert, shouted and fell on knee. “The King is down!” He shouted the warning and Louis shuddered at the words he had heard on some very inauspicious occasions in his long life. An entire world of memories from ages past loomed immediately in his mind as he was transported back in time some twelve hundred years to a dusty battlefield in France.
The ghostly Templars drew their swords and formed a line across the grass, staring off down the meadow as if waiting for whatever might have been pursuing the Elven king.
(((((((((((((
Luke Andrew tried to keep up with Marduk while holding his grandmother close to him. She was moving, but not very well. The shock she had suffered upon stepping out of her home into the Seventh Gate had brought them to a standstill for several moments, while she tried bravely to grasp what had happened. He’d almost lost sight of Marduk and Sophia when Lily had simply sat down in front of him, and now he was quite sure that whatever had frightened the mighty Lord of the Sixth Gate was gaining on them. He could feel it behind them. They passed from one colorful chamber full of wonders to another, but behind them, when he dared to glance back, he could see the lights going dim, and then out, as the pursuing demon, or whatever it was, passed through his father’s Gate.
“Lord Marduk!” He shouted as Lily stumbled again and fell. He went down beside her and held her trembling form against him. She was chattering from shock, but putting up a valiant front of courage.
Marduk stopped briefly and Sophia started back toward them.
“No!” The Lord grabbed her hand and stopped her. “It will not harm them. It is after the baby!”
“What?!” Sophia shrieked and spun on Marduk and tried to yank her hand from his grip. “Let me go! You’re lying! You’re the one who wants Michael! You want to kill him! You want to kill all of us! I know all about you, Marduk Kurios!!”
“Sophia, you are hysterical. Hush. Think!” Marduk tried to calm her hysteria, but did not relinquish his hold. He tightened his grip slightly when she showed no signs of responding rationally and brought the woman to her knees on the stone. “I need you to take care of your son, but if you insist, I will take him and leave you here with them.”
“Luke!” Sophia called to Luke Andrew, but he was unable to help her.
“Go with him, Sophia,” Luke shouted to her as he struggled to his feet under the weight of his grandmother. “I’ll catch up. Whatever it is, we have to trust him.”
Marduk let go of her and started off at once. Sophia gave Luke one last look and ran after her baby.
Luke started after them, half-carrying, half-dragging Lily along with him, but when the next fork in the road presented itself, he took the opposite direction as that taken by Marduk, and helped Lily sit on the smooth floor of peach and crème colored stone, which looked deceptively soft. Lily moaned and fanned her own face with one hand. When she started to speak, he pressed one hand over mouth and shook his head. Their pursuer was upon them. Luke could see the turn they had taken from the pale blue and pink passage. The light dimmed and the colors faded. A cold draft of air, very near the floor washed over their feet and legs as the darkness flowed past their hiding place in plain sight. If the thing had been after them, it would have had no trouble finding them there.
“Lily,” Luke released his hold on his grandmother. “Grandmother,” he changed his tone as she threatened to begin weeping again. “I know this hard to understand, but there are some things about John that you need to know.”
“Where is John?” She whispered and her voice trembled. “What is happening John Paul?”
Luke helped her into a semi-reclining position against the smooth side of the cavern and then sat in front of her.
“Grandmother, I have some unpleasant business to speak with you about,” he said and then rushed on “I’m not John Paul, but you are my grandmother all the same,” he told her. “My name is Luke Andrew. I am named for Mark Andrew and Luke Matthew. They are… my brothers.”
“That is not possible,” she shook her head.
“Their father… and mine… is the one you call John, but we know him as Mark Andrew Ramsay,” he grimaced. The words did not even make sense
to him. “You know him as John. He is not a man, Grandmother. He is… well, to put into terms that you might understand, he is an angel. You have heard of Uriel, the Archangel?”
“Of course I have!” She frowned at him. “I am good Christian, John… Luke.”
“John Luke. That should about do it.” He smiled at the idea.
“You look very much like John… Mark,” she was trying. “But angels do not come to earth as men, Luke. Much less do they marry women. Unless, of course, wait…” she put one hand against her forehead and fluttered her eyes as if she would faint. “I remember a man… an odd fellow. He called himself Ambrosius and also Uriel.”
“You would be surprised how your ‘John’ got around. He goes by a number of names and titles.” He glanced down the corridor. The light was slowly returning to the other passage. “This…” he waved his hand around “is my father’s home away from home. It is called the Seventh Gate. It is what you might consider part of hell.”
“An angel living in hell?” Lily wiped at her eyes and looked about the colorful chamber. There were silver streaks in the rock from which the light emanated. “That makes even less sense, lad, and this doesn’t look anything like I should think hell would appear.”
“Then perhaps you should rethink your ideas,” he muttered. “You lived a long, long time ago as Lily Ramsay. You were the wife of Sir Timothy Ramsay. My father came to you in some guise or another, perhaps as this Ambrosius, and in a moment of weakness, you allowed him to… seduce you.”
“I will not hear these words from my grandson!” She put her hands over her ears, but he pulled them away.
“You must and you will or else I will leave you here to wander in these caverns forever,” he told her. “I am not a vicious person, Grandmother, nor do I want to hurt you, but if you don’t listen, you are a dead weight to me, and I have to move on. I have to catch up with Lord Marduk and help him protect the baby and Sophia.”
“Who is Sophia?” Her eyes widened. “Tell me the truth.”
“Meredith is my mother. Merry, whom you have seen with Luke Matthew, is Luke Matthew’s wife. She is the Queen of England and Luke Matthew is King. Meredith, who looks exactly like Queen Merry, is also an angel, and that makes me one as well. Mark or rather, John, is my father. You are his mother in a sense. You conceived of twins from him, and he placed himself into one of them, the younger one, whom you thought was living in Edinborough. ‘John’ lived as Mark Andrew for almost fifteen hundred years. Now, he has returned here as Uriel or Adar, the angel, releasing Mark, your son to his own life. Your son, Mark Andrew, is the father of Sophia’s child.”
“Tell me no more!” She held up one hand to stop him and began to get up. “Let us find our way out of this place. When I see John again, he can explain it all to me and you can be there to listen. We’ll see what he has to say for himself.”
It was obvious that Lily thought her grandson a lunatic, and was now trying to appease him long enough to get back home.
“All right then,” he said and pretended not to know that she was pretending. “This way then, Grandmother. After you.”
(((((((((((((
Menaka was just pulling a rather large perch from the pond when she discovered Levi running toward her. At first, she was undecided whether to throw the pole in the water or finish landing the fish before responding to his shouts. She yanked the fish onto the bridge and dropped the pole before running into his arms. As they were hugging and kissing and trying to figure out how they had come to be here all at one time, she noticed the commotion on the meadow beyond his shoulder.
“Levi!” She pushed him away. “Look there. What is happening? Are those not some of Lemarik’s Templars?”
Levi turned reluctantly, tearing his eyes away from her face and saw the Templars lining up across the meadow. Ereshkigal and the others had converged on a spot directly behind them, but it was impossible to see what the cause of their concern might be.
“We’d best see what is passing.” She took her husband’s arm and dragged him toward the others. He did not want to join the others so very soon. He’d not seen his wife in ages and ages…
He mumbled something about duty and God and fate and misery as she dragged him along.
Before they could reach the knot of people in the meadow, a shout to their right brought everyone’s attention around. Plotius’ band of Boggan warriors burst from the woods, loping and howling in a seemingly chaotic fashion. In their midst, could be seen a man and woman, running as if the devil himself were after them.
Louis stood holding the body of Il Dolce Mio.
“Reshki! Nergal!” Marduk could be heard shouting above the howls of the Boggans.
“Plotius!” Nergal swatted at the Captain. “Call off your worms!”
Plotius pulled a horn from his belt and blasted it twice. The Boggans fell back, and they could see Marduk, the bundle he held to his chest and Sophia.
“That’s Sophia!” Konrad rushed forward with Apolonio and a host of others behind him.
The scene immediately following the arrival of Marduk was sheer chaos for several minutes, and then Ereshkigal put an end to it with the wave of one hand. In the quiet that followed, only her voice could be heard.
“I suggest that everyone take a seat in the pavilion,” she said. “Plotius, have your men bring drinks for everyone. Lord Marduk, you have some explaining to do.”
(((((((((((((
“Lily!” ‘John’ burst through the front door of the big house and shouted for his wife. “Lily, where are you?”
“She is not here,” Mark Andrew answered and came running from the kitchen toward the front door.
‘John’ caught his arm, and Luke Matthew barred his way.
“Sophia is gone, Luke Andrew is gone and so is everyone else,” Mark told them. “I have looked everywhere.”
“Marduk took them into the Gates.” ‘John’ slammed one fist again the stair rail. “Why?” He turned about and looked up the stairs. “What would have made him run? Why did he take the baby?”
Mark tried again to get past Luke Matthew, but the Knight would not budge from the doorway.
“We go together or not at all,” the King of the Brits told him quietly.
“The baby,” John repeated and pressed both hands against his temples. “That’s why! I remember. The plasma. The bargain! I thought I was dreaming… no, I was not dreaming, it was real.”
Mark Andrew turned on his father, and took him by the collar of his black field jacket.
“What? What did you dream, Father?” He was very close to self-destruction.
“The incantations. You made them to deter the comet’s main body,” ‘John’ looked his son in the eyes. “I… we the two of us together, finished them. You were exhausted, and I was able to take control.”
“What did you do?!” Mark shouted at him, and Luke Matthew pulled them apart.
Merry took the opportunity to get inside the foyer. She watched this play out in dismay, understanding none of it.
“I saved yur miserable loife!” ‘John’ shouted back at him angrily. “Thair was no toime! Th’ incantation ’ad t’ be finished! Ye over estimated yur abilities, laddie. Calling up four o’ Marduk’s powers at one toime is suicide!”
“At least I made the effort, Father! Where were you when the world was ending? What were you doing?”
“I’ll not be questioned by a whelp!” ‘John’ pushed him away. “Suffoice it t’ say thot we’d best foind yur babe before Galdur foinds ’im. Ye shud ’ave given ’im th’ swoard! Ye dunna think ’e wud wark fur free, d’ ye? If I’d known wot ye wair up to, I cud ’ave ’elped ye!”
Luke Matthew took hold of ‘John’s’ arm when he thought they might come to blows.
“I needed no help, Father,” Mark told him calmly. “I am not as helpless as you might think.”
“You were a helpless babe in Sophia’s arms not more than two years ago,” ‘John’ reminded him
. “If it were not for her care, you would be dead.”
“And I’m well aware of that. It was to return the favor I risked so much to make her time of delivery painless. It is more than you can claim,” Mark Andrew raised his chin very slightly.
“I should gut you for that remark,” ‘John’s’ voice was dangerously quiet. “But like all sons, you are in need of lessons in life that I don’t have time to give you. In the meantime, I suggest you stick close to your brother, and he might take pity on your worthless ass and keep you from killing yourself before your son knows who you are.”
“Brother,” Luke Matthew intervened. “I think we should be making up our minds what to do. This is worthless. We can have family disputes some other time.” The Knight cast a dark glance at Mark Andrew. “You would do well to listen to him. He’s kept me alive longer than I care to think about. He’s kept us all alive, and I doubt he’ll do any less for Sophia and the babe.”
“For everyone’s sake, I hope you are right.” Mark Andrew returned the hostile gaze.
“For everyone’s sake, I hope you are all finished with the bullshit,” Merry interjected. “If something is after the baby, then we should be making hay while the sun shines.”
“What?” Luke Matthew looked at his wife in puzzlement.
“Never mind.” She sat down on the bottom riser and turned up a crystal goblet full of brown liquor. She picked up the decanter from the step and poured the glass full again. “I don’t know about you fellows, but I’m parched, and I’m scared to death for the first time in a long time. I didn’t come all this way just to listen to you three argue. If you know what is going on, ‘John’, then I suggest you spit it out, then we’ll decide what can be done. For every spell or incantation, there is an equal and opposite force, is there not?”
The Perfect Sun Page 28
