The Centaur (7 page)

The sun was already half buried in the horizon, a tremendous red ball, as they skidded and stumbled down the rubble filled ramp into the ruins of the temple. They found one corner with two partially remaining walls at right angles, hidden behind a pile of disjointed columns. It was the next best thing to a bed and breakfast and there was room for the horses as well. When the horses had been fed the last of the oats and watered with the last of the water and they had consumed the last of the soured milk and honey, they ventured out of the ruins long enough to take a closer look at the ominous black markings delineating the outline of the missing monument.

Galen got down on his stomach in order to take a closer look into the hole with his precious flashlight. Michael leaned close as he turned it on and held it out over the edge of the pit. They were both startled to learn that the pit was not a pit at all, but a solid surface only a few inches below the white stone on which they perched. Smooth, black and completely non-reflective. It absorbed the light from the flashlight as if hungry for photons. Both men let out involuntary yelps when the truth became apparent. Galen scrambled back as Michael tried to pull him up simultaneously. They scurried back a few dozen paces and stood holding each other like two frightened schoolboys. When nothing attacked them immediately, they let go of each other and straightened their jackets before walking back to the pit for a closer look. Galen would not approach any closer than a yard before stopping again and watching as Michael knelt on one knee beside the anomalous object. He reached tentatively toward it and heard Galen draw a sharp breath before he placed his hand on the invisible surface.

“Hmmm.” Michael commented and ran his hand over the smooth blackness.

“What?” Galen breathed the word and then jumped as another of the unearthly howls echoed across the pit. The horses snorted and whinnied nervously in their selected campsite.

“It feels like plastic,” Michael frowned and wiggled closer to the indention.  He pushed his hand further out and then jerked it back suddenly, causing Galen to shriek.

“Damn it, Michael!!” Galen was beside him in an instant. “What the hell are you doing?! You don’t know what that is. Come on. Let’s get back and build a fire. There are some wooden fragments back there. Broken casings or crates or something. It’s getting dark and…” The blonde man stopped talking as another sound grew around them. A low, rumbling, grating sound, as if something were pushing one of the stone blocks across the ground. They could feel the vibrations of the sound in their feet.

“What’s that?” Michael clutched Galen’s arm. “Do you feel it?”

“I feel it!” Galen hissed as he stumbled backwards, dragging Michael with him. “Let’s get away from this.”

They turned and ran back to the sheltered portion of the ruins. The rumbling stopped and the lonely howl of a jackal echoed from somewhere out on the plains.

Michael sighed in relief when he recognized the more familiar bark of the wild dog.

“Jackal.” He said with some satisfaction as he helped Galen build the fire. They gathered all the wood they could find and then made themselves as comfortable as possible. They would take turns sleeping and keeping the fire burning, hoping that it would deter any wild creatures, not daring to think that it might have the opposite
affect on not-so-wild creatures lurking in the darkness of the moonless night.

At half past three in the morning, Galen shook Michael from a sound sleep. The grating, rumbling noise had returned, louder and seemingly emanating from everywhere at once. Both men looked about in growing panic, trying to find the source of the disturbance. Again, they could feel it in their legs. Tiny pebbles and individual grains of sand danced on the surface of the stone floor where they sat. The vibration caused a shift in the firewood and the resulting popping and snapping caused them both to yelp in fright.

“Maybe we should take our chances out on the plain,” Galen whispered. The horses continued to prance about, snorting and whinnying softly, yanking against their tethers, trying to stamp their hobbled feet.

“Perhaps you are right,” Michael agreed. They gathered their meager belongs and stamped out the fire. Just as they were about to ascend the
scrabbly ramp leading up to the plain, they saw a strange blue light beyond the tumbled down pillars of the temple.

“Lucifer.” Galen’s hopes soared. It was the very same light that the angelic warriors had exuded whenever the night caught them in their travels.

“Not so fast.” Michael caught his cousin’s arm.

The light grew in intensity. Whatever or whoever it was, they were coming toward them. Galen shivered when he heard the sing of steel on leather. Michael had drawn his sword. Galen quickly followed suit and the two frightened men stood waiting almost breathlessly to see what new terror approached.

“Greetings, friends of Truth.” The words came to their ears before the figure emanating the glow stepped around the barricade. “I come in peace.”

“Identify yourself, sir.” Michael demanded and brandished his sword so that it caught the blue light and reflected it back to the source.

“Some call me Ashmodai. Others call me Asmodeus. Yet others may know me as Ashmodel. However, I am none of those in my own preference. I am Hamabiel of the Cherubim. I give the rains of spring unto the dry earth when and where deserved. Who comes to disturb my rest?”

“Cherubim?” Michael lowered his sword slightly.

“Child of Light.” The beautiful angel approached Michael unafraid of the sword. “Who are you?”

“My name is Michael Ian Ramsay. This is my brother Galen Zachary Ramsay.”

“No. Not your brother.” Ashmodel took a close look at Galen.

“As far as I am concerned, he is my brother.”

“As you say.” The angel stepped back and cupped his chin in his hand. “Ramsay. Ramsay. Do you know John Mark Ramsay of Lothian?”

“He is our father’s brother.” Michael told him.

“Ahhh. You speak in riddles.” The angel laughed and the sound was indescribable. Galen lowered his sword without realizing it. “We are our father’s brothers, our mother’s father, our brother’s father and our children’s children. Hmmmm. Sounds very typical of Uriel.”

“You know our uncle?” Galen asked him. “Have you seen him? We came in search of him.”

“He has not been here, my son.” The angel continued to walk around slowly them. “I am waiting for him myself.”

“You are?” Michael perked up. “Then he is coming here?”

“Sooner or later.” The angel stopped perusing the horses and looked up as the unearthly howling they had heard earlier commenced anew. “You should come with me. There are dangers too numerous to count in these wilds.”

“Where are you going, might I ask?” Michael narrowed his eyes.

“Back to Leviathan.” Ashmodel began to pick his way back through the ruins. “Let the animals go. Quickly now. They will fend for themselves.”

“But wait!” Galen took two steps forward and the howling let go anew. He recognized the name from the few classes in Hebrew and Rabbinic studies in which he had managed to stay awake against Master Simon’s soothing voice. Leviathan was the Hebrew word for the Babylonian version of Chaos or
Tiamat. Other Rabbinic legends had the word referring to a creature, one of twin monsters of the deep associated with the angel Rahab.

“Do as he says.” Michael ran to the horses and began to unbridle the first. “Let them go.”

They made quick work of the horses and then ran after the retreating glow of the angel.

“Did he say ‘Leviathan’?” Galen panted as they climbed over the rubble.

“He did.” Michael told him shortly. “Hurry now!”  They could hear something scrambling loudly in the rubble behind them.

Chapter Three of Seventeen

I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove

“What does it mean ‘
takes vengeance on the world of luminaries
’?” Lucio leaned close to Simon’s ear as they sat watching Edgard pace the desert sand in front of them. They had been summoned to the Grand Master’s tent by Barry of Sussex almost an hour earlier. Edgard had ushered his Knights out of the command tent and along the dry wash to this place. Now they sat or reclined on the smooth boulders while he paced in silence.

“Raguel was once a very powerful archangel.” Simon whispered. “He was the one that brought the other angels into account when they did something wrong.”

“Ahhh. Sort of an angelic internal affairs agent, no?” Lucio smiled and Simon just stared at him. Lucio’s smile faded. It was no laughing matter.

If Raguel was, indeed, still in residence at the top of the mountain, there would be trouble. Edgard had muttered something about Uriel’s meddling with Lucifer’s son, Enoch and the further meddling of Raguel with Enoch. Enoch. Enoch. The son of Lucifer and Eve and the very same that had been taken by the angel Uriel and taught the ways of astronomy and so and so forth before the Biblical flood. Lucio was satisfactorily confused. His ignorance of angelic lore left him sorely lacking.

“But he also became a part of all that is fallen, Brother.” Lucio reminded him. “You said so yourself. How can the pot call the kettle black?”

Edgard was suddenly in front of him with lightning speed. “How can you think of cooking at a time like this?”

“Cooking? Excuse`?” Lucio drew his chin back and looked at the Grand Master in surprise.

“I heard you talking about pots, Golden Eagle. The least you can do is keep your mind on the subject at hand,” d’Brouchart snapped at him and resumed his pacing.

Lucio made a wry face and looked at Konrad who shrugged slightly. When he caught Barry’s eye, the Soneschal looked embarrassed. They had suddenly regressed a hundred years and nothing ever really changed. The others busied themselves with their fingernails or the stars now appearing in the growing twilight above them. The fire that Lavon and Christopher had built in the midst of their impromptu circle cast ruddy glows on their faces and even the two Kings in their midst tried to seem unaware of the little exchange between the Knight of the Golden Eagle and the Grand Master much as they had done in the past when the Master had chastised the Italian in front of all of them like a small child. Even though he reacted in the very same manner as he always had, the entire situation now seemed extremely funny to him. Ludicrous, ridiculous, hilarious.

He began to laugh softly and then clamped one hand over his mouth as Edgard spun on him again. The Grand Master frowned but the effect was not the same. The Grand Master had lost much in his transformation.

His now lovely face contorted in complete rage could not begin to compare with the gruff exterior of the Master they had once known and feared. Barry’s rough and lean face though handsome of its own accord was much more intimidating than Edgard d’Brouchart new facade. Lucio could not hold it back and the harder he tried, the more he laughed. At first, everyone gaped at him in open consternation and/or shock. Edgard took hold of his shoulders and shook him, but it was no good, he doubled over and clutched his stomach as the laughter grew worse, making him weak. Konrad was the first of his companions to break.

The Apocalyptic Knight attempted to come to his father-in-law’s aid before the Master killed him, but the laughter was contagious. Von Hetz hiccupped and then laughed as Lucio slipped through his hands and fell into the sand, curling on his side. Simon frowned and then shook his head when Konrad stumbled away and leaned against Louis Champlain, trying to catch his breath. It was not long before everyone in the little conclave was rolling with laughter, slapping their own knees and each other on the back as the laughter overtook them. Only Edgard remained unaffected. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, patting one booted foot impatiently as he waited out the unexpected storm. This was not the first time his looks had failed to elicit the proper response from his compatriots and only proved out his own feelings about beauty. Nothing but trouble ever came of an overly comely face. When his Knights and the two Kings had finally gotten it all out of their systems, he walked carefully around the circle, examining each of them closely as they struggled to remain in control.

“Now.” He said softly after a moment.  “Since we have all purged ourselves of that particularly nasty little bug, can we please get on with the business at hand?”

Everyone nodded sheepishly and the Grand Master swept his mantle out and around before seating himself on another low boulder.

“I have given what my son, Simon, has told me some deep consideration. I’m afraid I never paid much attention to the comings and goings of the Hebrews before the time of David and Solomon. My fault, no other. My son, however, has paid a great deal of attention to the study of the Hebraic history, that is the doings recorded in the good book of Genesis as recorded by Moses in particular. Moses, it seems, had some dealings with a particular priest who lived near this very mountain. The ‘priest’ as he was called ministered, supposedly to a flock of Midianites. Now, not much more is said of this priest other than noting that he had seven daughters, pay attention to the number, he was called Jethro. Jethro was referred to as Reuel in Exodus when Moses first encounters his seven daughters at the well and saves them from the shepherds who drove them from the well in Chapter 2, Verse 18: ‘And when they came to Reuel their father, he said,
How is it that ye are come so soon to day?
’ He was also called Raguel as noted in the book of Numbers, Chapter 10, verse 29 when it states ‘
And Moses said unto Hobab, the son of Raguel the Midianite, Moses' father in law
’.”