The Centaur (45 page)

“So he’s gone off and gotten himself in trouble… again?” The Grand Master commented sourly and let out a long sigh.

“It is not the Golden Eagle who is in trouble, Sir,” Konrad said and stood up. He was a good foot or more taller than the new and improved Grand Master. “It is… Sir Ramsay’s son, Mark.”

“Now that’s a good one. Du Morte has a son named Mark? Do I know him?”

“I believe the Ritter is referring to the man we sent to Scotland, Your Grace.” Louis Champlain seemed at first to be patiently explaining the reference to Mark Andrew’s son, but one look at the Frankish King’s face told another story.

“Ohhhh, that fellow, yes, I suppose that would be an accurate description of his relationship to our Knight of Death.” D’Brouchart turned on his heel and made his way back through the throng which had gathered around Konrad. Konrad pushed his way through the elbows and shoulders to catch up with him.

“What do you intend to do about Sir Dambretti’s request for aid?” Konrad asked him none-too-respectfully.

“Did he ask for help?” D’Brouchart turned on him.

“He asked for help and more.” Konrad did not back down.

“How can
we
help him? We are a long way from home, and we have a long road ahead of us, sir,” d’Brouchart said without emotion. “If Dambretti had stayed where he belonged, here with us, then he would not be needing our help.”

“That makes a great deal of sense, Your Grace,” Konrad nodded his head briefly. “In other words, you subscribe to the doctrine of what you don’t know won’t hurt you?”

“Yes, I do, but I prefer calling it crossing one bridge at a time. Surely Dambretti knows our plight here. He has a great deal of gall asking for our help, don’t you think?” The Master asked and swept one hand back toward the straggling army.

Again, the Master left the dark Knight standing in the midst of his comrades and made his way back toward his horse. Konrad stared after him in disbelief until Luke Matthew took his arm.

“Brother, tell me what you felt,” Luke told him in a low voice as the crowd broke up. “You may find sympathetic ears yet.” Apolonio caught his grandfather’s eye as he fell in beside the King of the Brits.

“There was something else.” Konrad frowned and tried to brush the dirt and dust from the sleeves of his black shirt. He was not used to being filthy and he hated the feel of the grimy clothing. His beard was full of sand and bits of debris. He
would have sold his soul for a long hot bath, a shave and a good haircut and the use of a real water closet with plush four-ply tissue. His comrades were hardly recognizable now, and, if he had not been with them as they grew uglier and dirtier, he would not have known them at all. None of them had been able to clean up since they had left the Ark, and none had cut hair or beard since setting foot in Arabia. Konrad walked back toward the Frankish king who stood with his arms crossed over his chest. Louis caught his other arm when they passed and continued on with them.

“I saw the General.”

“General? Schweikert?” Louis urged him to continue.  “I thought that Lucifer took care of him.”

“Nothing was ever definitely said about it one way or another.” Apolonio looked about nervously. He knew all about the General. He had studied the archives extensively when Michey had been busy elsewhere, and his grandfather had told many more stories of the General’s atrocities.

“Then he is not dead?” Luke asked.

“I don’t think so,” Konrad said and tried to clear his thoughts. “I saw him in the desert. He…”

“What? He what?” Louis tightened his grip on the Knight’s left arm. The Frankish king never ignored the visions of the Apocalyptic Knight, not this one, nor the one before him.

“He was lost. He called for help from…” Konrad felt disoriented and uncertain. What he had seen had been very disturbing. Even more puzzling than the loss of the people in Scotland and Lucio’s plight.

“From who? Joszef Daniel? The queen mother?” Luke prompted him.

“From God.”

Both Louis and Luke Matthew let go of the lanky Knight and stood frowning at him. Their wild hair, scraggly, unkempt beards and dirty faces made them look like terrible visions from hell themselves.

“He was begging God to help him and he mentioned my name,” Konrad told them and shrugged. It was what he had seen.

It never ended. Never, never. Nothing had ever prepared him for the outcome of Armageddon. The whole thing had been a farce, a joke. They had come all this way for nothing!

The Knight of the Apocalypse began to cry silently. The only thing he had left in the world was his son Apolonio and his father-in-law, Lucio Dambretti. He didn’t even have an apprentice to help him with his horse and equipment. He had to saddle his own horse and pitch his tent by himself. The thought of replacing Vallen Martin after his death, had been too depressing to consider. Never before had ever wished more than to be dead and buried in the crypt in Lothian alongside the sparse remains of his beloved Lucia.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

Lucio sat on the back steps of Mark Andrew’s old house as he had done so many times in the past. He pulled his collar up around his neck and shivered, and then relaxed his mind. He allowed the cold to slip away and envisioned a bright midsummer’s day to take its place. In the brilliant greens and blues of Simon’s flowers, he saw Lucia and Marco come running toward him, holding hands and laughing. They stopped in front of him and smiled up at him.

“Poppi, look what Uncle Stephano brought me from Naples!” Marco said and held up a fanciful water blaster. The bright-eyed boy showed him how it worked by squirting his sister with it. Lucia squealed and then took the pistol away from her brother, returning the squirt. Marco wrested it away from her and ran shouting and laughing back down the sidewalk toward the pool.

Lucia sat down next to him on the steps and took one of his hands in her cool, wet ones.

“Daddy? Who do you love more? Me or Marco? Marco says you love him more because he looks like Mommy, and you love her most in all the world! Is it true? Do you love him more than me?” She screwed her lovely little face into a serious scowl.

Lucio smiled at her and shook his head. “That is nonsense, la
mia dolce. You look like your poppi. How could I not love you as much as I love Marco? I love all three of you. All the same.”

“But can’t you love me just a little bit more than you love Marco? He’s a boy!” Lucia held up her thumb and forefinger very close together. “
Puh-lease? Just a little, tintsee, wintsee bit?”

Lucio gave in and glanced around the yard as if he would tell her a great secret.

“Only if you don’t tell anyone,” he held one finger against her lips and she leaped onto his lap, hugging him tightly and planting a very cold, very wet kiss on his cheek before running off to find her brother. She would tell him first and then the others.

The vision faded and the cold returned with a vengeance, almost freezing the tears on his face. Such a scene had never occurred. Would never occur. The sunny climate of Southern Italy was still preferable to Scotland, and he wondered what a happy life he might have lived with a little money and a lot of wine during the Middle Ages, if he’d never gotten mixed up with the Order. By now he would have lived another life or two and might have omitted these terrible things, weighty decisions and responsibilities.

He was not constructed to bear such burdens. His mind, in his opinion, was much too weak and prone to making the worst decisions possible. Catharine had reminded him of his ‘destiny’ repeatedly in the short time that he had been with her even though he had asked her not to worry about such things in light of the precious ‘little’ time before he had to leave again. She had refrained, but then just before she had kissed him goodbye, she had reminded him once more that he had to keep his thoughts focused on the future when he and she would go back to the east, to Egypt and start a new Kingdom of Khem based loosely on a blend of Alexandrian and Cathar Christian doctrine.

Lucio did not want to think about it at all. The idea of founding an entire nation seemed beyond his imagination. Certainly Catharine would do most of it. She seemed to have it all planned out, and she had been writing letters to Oriel and other officials in the Frankish Empire. Catharine had established quite a web of useful political, clerical and financial advisors. Well, she could do it; he trusted her completely. What he did not trust was the information Nicole had wrung out of
Lugally or whatever his name had been. Something had been very wrong with her incantation. He’d seen her father at work many times and never had he seen such a mishmash of overlapping rings and echoes. She had argued against his reasoning that her magick had not been strong enough to be reliable and had inevitably lost her temper and gave him a piece of her mind. By now he should have collected her entire mind from all the pieces of it he had received. The Italian wondered briefly why he could not seem to get along with females in general and decided it was their fault, not his. Even his own daughter, whom he had loved beyond endurance, had rejected him. If she were there with him at that instance, he would have asked her to forgive him. For what? For being himself? For being alive? For loving her beyond measure? This made him smile in spite of the cold wind blowing across the lawn into his face.

The door creaked open behind him and Nicole snuggled down beside him, wearing at least two heavy sweaters against the cold. Her hair blew about her face in golden tendrils as the wind plucked at them. Her cheeks glowed red under the brisk breeze.

“I’m sorry, Lucio,” she said and squinted against the wind as she looked away from him. “That’s a hard word for me.”

“I know.” He tried not to smile. “It has always been so for me as well.”

“You know I will have to go after them. It’s simple. I can’t live with myself if I don’t try.” She turned back to face him and smiled at him with her father’s eyes. The entanglement of their lives and the lives of all the Council of Twelve struck him again with more force than usual, and he had to look away. “You don’t have to go with me. I’ll be fine. I know my way around down there… somewhat.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it between her own. His fingers were like ice, hers… warm and soft. “I’ll be back. I promise.”

It was the same argument that had caused the rift earlier in the evening, but now it was not an argument. They had no audience, no other input and it was a simple statement. ‘I like things simple,’ Mark Andrew’s words echoed in Lucio’s head. ‘I’ll be back. I
always
come back.’ He nodded. She would go. He really had no way to stop her.

“I’ll go with you…” he stopped her protest by kissing her lips lightly in the Templar fashion. “Simple.”

Nicole’s face lit up much too bright. This was exactly what she wanted to hear and his heart sank. Catharine would kill him. Mark Andrew would kill him. The Grand Master would kill him. The mental list continued.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

Marduk stormed through the piles of priceless relics, jewels, gold and weapons in Ereshkigal’s treasure room, scattering crowns, diadems, scepters and doubloons in all directions while Nergal stood near the crack in the rock that passed for a door, with his arms crossed over his scaly chest. The golden Ark of the Covenant sat on an ivory and ebony inlaid, rosewood pedestal in one corner of the room.

“Of course it was not
Enki, you idiot!” He raged at his unwilling accomplice. “I should know!” He bent suddenly and picked up a small copper and iron ring with strange markings. The object had caught his eye due to its unassuming design and lack of luster. He looked closely at it, frowned and stuffed into the pocket of his black robe. He had gone back to wearing the loose robes and sandals of his favorite personage al Sajek, a character he had taken straight out of the works of one of the world’s greatest horror novelists, H.P. Lovecraft. Of course, he had changed the name to his own liking in order to keep anyone from realizing the truth, but he was a none-the-less a fictional character after all. Marduk was his real name, and his real form was not suited at all for life on the surface of the earth. The unfortunate former owner of the human body he wore was forever lost in the Abyss and none, including himself, even knew what his name might have once been.

One of Marduk’s particularly nasty powers allowed him to travel backwards and forwards in time quite easily. He enjoyed, or at one time he had enjoyed, slipping back and forth from the present to the future and Lovecraft, whom he had met during a sojourn in the early Twentieth Century, fascinated him, thus the legend of the Mad Arab had grown from pure fiction in the Twentieth Century to reality in the Twelfth Century. The Templars, or at least some of them, had perpetuated
H.P. Lovecraft’s myth of the Old Ones eight hundred years before he was born. And it had been Marduk, who had put on the guise of a mysterious trader from the Far East in order to put the fabled Necronomicon in the hands of the author. Ingenious. Convoluted. Intriguing. Impossible to sort out. Just the sort of fun al Sajek liked to have with humans.

“You should know, I agree,” Nergal growled and flicked a gold ring of exceeding beauty and workmanship into the air. He caught the ring on his tongue and crunched it between his monstrous teeth. Marduk scowled at him.