The Wayward Godking (26 page)

“Get in or out!” Simon snapped at him, and then pushed Galen across the room, depositing him in a leather arm chair.

Carlisle stepped inside and then stiffened at the sight of Lydia’s troubled expression. She brushed back her hair quickly and tried to take on a more unconcerned air.

“Would you care for a drink, Carlisle?” she asked and began to pour him a glass of water without waiting for an answer. “Please make yourself at home. I was just going down to the pool.” She thrust the glass in his hands and disappeared out the door before anyone could say another word.

“Well.” Carlisle sniffed the water, and then set it down on a table near the door. “I hope it wasn’t anything I said.”

“Just shut up,” Simon told him through gritted teeth. “Sit down.”

Carlisle smiled and then sat down on Lydia’s footstool.

“Drinks
and
a floor show…” he smiled at Galen’s angry face. “Are you going to torture him now? Or should we take him to the basement under the chapel? The others won’t be able to hear his screams.”

“You’re an ass,” Simon muttered as he backed away from Lucio’s son and sat on the edge of the desk. “Galen and I are simply trying to reach an accord. He is concerned about the whereabouts of his father and his brother. They seem to be missing, and he is rightly concerned.”

“Yes… yes, indeed,” Carlisle nodded his head. “As am I.”

Simon looked at his arrogant half-brother in consternation. “How so?”

“Well, you see, I have very little to keep me occupied hereabouts, and so I keep myself abreast of the goings on and the goings out and the goings away,” Carlisle continued “I noticed you and Vanni and Sir Dambretti and the elder Brothers d’Ornan entered said building along with the venerable Knight of Death and came out again without said Knight of Darkness. I also noted, simply in passing, of course, Vanni and Sir Dambretti entered the old barracks and never emerged. Upon further investigation, I perceived they had simply disappeared, much like the
Chevalier du Morte,
no doubt. I daresay I shant sleep a wink until they return. I would not want them traipsing about in
my
dreams.”

“You are intolerable,” Simon grumped and picked up a bottle of wine. He pulled the cork with his teeth before taking a long gulp. Much to their surprise, the gentle Healer spit some of the wine on Lydia’s rug in disgust. “I cannot believe you and I were ever on amiable terms, let alone kith and kin.”

“You mean my father went dream-walking without me?” Galen’s anger turned to hurt.

“Aye, Little Eagle, that he did,” Carlisle matched his expression “and such a pity when a father abandons the nest.”

“Shut up! All of you!” Simon slammed the bottle on the desk.

“I want to know something, brother of mine,” Carlisle’s voice took a different tone. “If we are going to get out of this accursed place, when are we going? When are you going to stop toying around and get us out of here? I want to go home… now! My people need me. They will be lost without me, and I have every idea that something is terribly amiss in the underworld. My mother can see nothing in her scrying dish. Blackness is everywhere. Death and destruction have come to my world and yours.”

“What do you mean?” Simon’s frown deepened as he moved around the desk. He opened the small refrigerator and tossed Galen a bottle of spring water as if he were still a young child

Galen looked down at the water and sighed.

“I mean my mother is no common witch.” Carlisle eyed him steadily. “She is well endowed with enough power to break through the bonds of this prison. She might not be able to leave here anymore than the rest of us, but she can see. She can see, Brother. Yet she cannot see! It is as if our worlds have disappeared. The only other possibility is she has lost her sight, and I cannot believe that. You haven’t lost your healing powers. I see the orbs drifting around you even now. I see that Sir Barry is still able to work his magick in the armory… he’s bored. I see that our father continues to use his own powers to look into the Abyss, but he sees nothing other than great vapors and troubles… as usual. His vision does not penetrate the Gates. He is blocked. My mother tells me so. I have spoken to Lavon de Bleu in confidence, and he tells me he has not lost his Mystery, but that he is unable to exercise it completely. We are being blocked. I tell you, brother, what I have told no one else. I retain the mysteries of the Golden Eagle. I, too, can soar the skies as a great bird. I, too, know the secrets of Isis and Osiris, and I tell you great things have gone amiss in the Halls of Amenti. A great flood, greater than any we have ever known has overtaken the lands we knew. North is no longer north and south is no more there. Ice grows in the jungles and jungles grow in the glacier fields. We are lost, brother.”

Simon was taken completely aback by his brother’s candid confession. He had often wondered if Carlisle retained the mystery of the Golden Eagle, but now this surprising revelation was completely overridden by the gravity of King Corrigan’s words.

“Maybe we’re not lost,” Galen spoke up quietly. “Maybe we are right where we should be. If the world has been destroyed somehow, and we have survived by being here,
wherever here is
, we may be here by the Grace of God.”

“You sound like your father.” Simon had to smile at last. “You may be right, but I would beg both of you to hold off telling my father about the missing people as long as possible. If they are in the dream fields, my sons tell me they can return at will. We only need to wait for them to come back, and perhaps they will have learned something useful.”

“How long do we wait?” Carlisle asked him. “Have you kept a diary? Do you know how long we’ve been here?”

“I know I have counted seven days.” Simon nodded to a notebook on his desk. “But I put no confidence in reckoning under these conditions. It may be seven days, seven months or seven years since we came here. It is impossible to tell.”

111

Nergal was dreaming. He drifted through the night sky above his desert kingdom where thousands of fires glowed in his honor. It was one of his major feast days on the morrow and his people had turned out in record numbers to pay homage to his temples and priests. The smell of burning wood and roasting meat filled the air around him and he breathed in the luscious aromas gratefully. His people were good people if a little slow at times, but then life was rough for them. These sacrificial fires would be given under great stress and loss in the truest sense of sacrifice. As he drifted high above them in a luminescent red cloud, he contemplated how best he might repay them for their loyalty during the coming year. There were many things he could bestow upon them, but he did not wish to spoil them as Lord Marduk spoiled his people, nor did he wish to exploit them in warfare as Semiramis did hers.

He had made a vow to himself the previous year to be more like his brother Nanna and his niece, Inanna. They had come and parleyed with him only a few short weeks earlier for a particularly fertile valley to the north. No one lived there, they had told him, and they wished to send an impoverished group of people there to care for it. It seemed that the grass there was in need of sheep and goats to feed upon it. Naturally, he had agreed. None of his shepherds or goatherds was ready to break off at the moment and there were plenty of such valleys in his domain. His brother had been overjoyed and then he’d had to listen to him extol the virtues of God’s creation for hours. Nanna could be such a bore, but he had his good points.

“Nergal?” Nanna’s voice called to him, and he turned within the ruddy cloud, looking for his brother.

“Where are you?” he asked and saw nothing, but the roiling clouds all around him. The black velvet of space stretched over his head and the desert pavement was far away below.

“I am here, my son,” the voice answered. It was not Nanna. Nanna would not call him that. No one had called him that in ages and ages.

“Who is there?” he asked a second question that was edged with just a hint of suspicion.

“Open your eyes, my son and behold a face of your acquaintance,” the voice was not threatening. It was, however, powerful, irresistible and quite familiar.

Nergal opened his eyes and the redness of the cloud remained, but he was not in a cloud in the sky. He was in one of his favorite pits in the lower regions of the Fifth Gate.

He blinked quickly and tried to clear the fog of the sleep and the dream. Above him, he saw the face of Lord Adar.

“Adar!” He righted himself and placed one foot on the rocky ledge where his visitor stood.

“No, not Adar.” The cloaked form standing before him pushed back the hood.

“Adalune?” Nergal narrowed his eyes. The son of Semiramis had never visited him here before. The man looked like the Djinni in many ways. Long, dark hair, long black beard, deep, blue eyes… blue eyes. Wrong.

His visitor laughed, exposing a set of perfect teeth. His hair had streaks of white throughout its silky length, but no braid, no silver ornaments attached, other than an elaborate set of earrings.

“Do you not recognize your own grandfather, my son?” He held out both arms and Nergal’s toothy mouth fell open. “Your countenance is formidable today. What troubles you?”

“Grandfather?” Nergal’s immense, throaty voice faded to a mere whisper. “Forgive me.” He transformed himself quickly, taking on the preferred form of the family patriarch, which happened to be the very same form that his Queen preferred. Lord Anu nodded his approval when the transformation was complete.

“That is much better,” he said as he held out his hand and the silver ring bearing the secret name of the moon flashed in the reddish glow. Nergal took his grandfather’s hand and kissed the ring.

“I am honored by your presence, my grandfather. Beyond honored, indeed.” Nergal bowed his head before the great Lord of the Moon. His knees trembled and his body shook from fear and excitement.

“Where is my daughter? Where is Reshki?” Anu asked him abruptly.

“I’m not sure, my grandfather,” Nergal cringed. “I should have kept up with her more thoroughly. Forgive me, but she angers me so at times, it is best we do not linger in one another’s company overlong with fraught nerves.”

“I understand.” Lord Anu took his grandson’s arm and directed him toward a dark passage.

“She is in the midst of a celebration of her family bloodlines, and it seems some problems have cropped up. I believe she went off to the Seventh Gate to take care of a nasty little development there.”

“Oh? Adar’s Gate?” Anu raised both eyebrows. His heavy silver earrings jingled in his ears as he walked. “And where might I find my youngest and most willful son?”

“I wouldn’t know that either, Your Grace,” Nergal admitted reluctantly. “It’s been quite some time since I’ve laid eyes on Lord Adar, but I can tell you this, his Gate is overrun with abominable spiders. Only just recently I was attacked by them myself. Nasty little critters. And there is the matter of Kinmalla, who is holding court there as well. He was debating one of Adar’s grandsons last I saw them, concerning Lord Marduk’s crimes.”

Lord Anu stopped in his tracks and squeezed his grandson’s arm.

“What is this? You say that pompous windbag is still at it?” his voice was filled with anger.

“Oh, aye, of course,” Nergal told him. “He let me off quite easily. It seems he could find no fault with my behavior of late, but he did request I send your daughter to see him. He says he has a lengthy list of crimes of which to accuse her.”

“Great stars and planets!” Anu released him. “Then I should think our first stop should be Adar’s Gate. If he cannot keep the place clean, then we’ll have to clean it for him. Where is Marduk? Did you say he is there as well?”

“Yes, Grandfather,” Nergal answered obediently. He felt like a child telling off on all his brothers and sisters now. A very disquieting sensation and all he wanted to do was sleep. The last thing he wanted to do was go back to the Seventh Gate.

“Then who is looking after the Sixth Gate? Semiramis?”

“Oh, no, my Lord.” Nergal shook his head and his heart fell. Anu had been gone a long, long time. “She no longer frequents the Abyss. Not since Lord Adar built her a home in the Hesperides. She doesn’t get along well with her mate, I’m afraid.”

“She doesn’t care for Marduk? What happened?” Anu looked at the Lord of the Fifth Gate in surprise.

“Lord Adar happened, Your Grace,” Nergal shrugged again.

“I thought she would appreciate her freedom. My youngest has a silver tongue. Blast it all! I should have never listened to Adar. Did he never seek his own mate? He didn’t finish the bargain…” Anu raised his voice. “I knew better than to allow him his creative notions. And he told me it was strictly for aesthetic reasons, but then the Sixth Gate was quite dreary. I thought it would brighten the place up a bit. Ahhh, it is to the detriment of the father to care too much for the sons. I wished only that Marduk should not languish in solitude overlong.”

“And a good plan it was, sir, if I might say so,” Nergal told him brightly. “I and my Queen have enjoyed each other’s company for age upon age. I am, however, pleased that Lord Adar had nothing to do with us. It was always her brother that worried me.” The Lord of the Fifth Gate glanced about the cavern nervously. “Your son did not accompany you, did he? I should not like to meet him unawares. He would find me as willing as ever to fight for her.”