Bloodstone (31 page)

“Pick up your rifle, Frey McAdam,” said White-beard. “There’s killers close by.”

They laid Broome in Beth’s wide bed and covered him with a thick blanket. White-beard moved outside. “What killers?” she asked.

“The most terrible creatures you’ll ever see,” he told her. “Huge Wolvers. Right about now they’ll be moving in on Pilgrim’s Valley. I hope the Crusaders there are good, steady men.”

“Wolvers would never attack anyone,” said Beth suspiciously.

“I agree with you, but these aren’t just Wolvers. Is that rifle fully loaded?”

“Be pretty useless if it wasn’t!” she snapped. The old man was tall and commanding, but there was about him an unconscious arrogance that nettled Beth McAdam. If there were such beasts as he described, she certainly had never seen one, and she had lived near Pilgrim’s Valley for twenty years. “How did Josiah get his wound?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Shot down in his home. They killed Daniel Cade, too.”

“The Prophet? My God! Why?”

“The same reason Bull Kovac was killed. Broome was going to give Oath for you.”

“That makes no sense,” she said. “What difference could it make?”

“This is rich land, Frey McAdam. Saul has taken to gathering such land to himself through Jacob Moon and his men. I should have seen what was happening. But I had other, more pressing problems on my mind. I’ll deal with Saul—if we survive what is coming.”

“
You’ll
deal with Saul. By what right?”

White-beard turned, his gaze locking to hers. “I made him, Beth; he is my responsibility. I am the Deacon.”

“This is insane,” stormed Beth. “Giant Wolvers and supposed murders are bad enough. You’re obviously deranged.”

“Begging your pardon, Frey McAdam,” said Tobe, “but he
is
the Deacon. I seen him at Unity Cathedral last year; it’s him, all right.”

The Deacon smiled at Tobe. “I remember you,” he said. “You worked with horses, and you brought in the young rider with the broken back. He was healed, I recall.”

“Yes, sir, Deacon. Then he got killed in a flash flood.”

Beth’s anger flared. “If you are the Deacon, then you are not welcome in my house,” she said icily. “Because of you a good man saw his church burned, his people slaughtered. And he’s out there now, suffering. By God, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

“And I am, lady,” he said softly. “I gave orders that the Wolvers should be moved back away from human settlements. My reasons will be all too clear within days. There is an enemy coming with powers you could not dream of; he has mutated Wolvers into creatures of colossal power. But yes, I am ashamed. It does not matter that I did what I thought was right. Whatever evil was done in my name is my responsibility, and I will live with that. As to not being welcome …” He spread his hands. “I can do nothing about that save ask you to bear with me. Only I can fight what is coming.”

“Why should I believe that?” countered Beth. “Everything you have is built on lies. The Jerusalem Man never predicted your coming. Shall I tell you how I know?”

“I’ll tell you,” he said mildly. “Because Jon Shannow, after sending the Sword of God through to destroy Atlantis, came back here to live a life as Jon Cade, a preacher. He lived with you for many years, but you tired of his purity and cast him out. Now understand this: Nothing was built on lies. Shannow brought me down from the sky, but more than that, he is my reason for being! He is why I am here, at this time, to fight this enemy. It is not necessary that you believe me, Beth. It is only necessary that you put aside your disbelief.”

“I have a friend out looking for him,” she said, her words cold. “He’ll come back. Then you can explain it to him!”

An eerie howl echoed in the valley. It was answered by several others.

“I saw a wagon to the north,” said the Deacon. “I suggest you invite the occupants to join you. They may not survive the night if you don’t.”

11

T
HE CITY WAS
vast and silent, the shutters on open windows flapping in the early-morning breeze, open doors yawning and creaking. The only other sound to break the silence was the steady clopping of the horses. Shannow was in the lead, Amaziga and Sam sharing the horse behind, with Gareth bringing up the rear.

The great south gate of Babylon was open, but there were no guards, no sentries patrolling the high walls. The silence was eerie, almost threatening.

The streets were wide and elegantly paved, the houses built of white rock, many boasting colorful mosaics. Statues lined the avenues, heroic figures in the armor of Atlantis. Although Babylon was a relatively new city, many of the statues and ornaments had been looted from an Atlantean site, as had much of the stone used in the buildings. The riders moved on through an open market square with rotting fruit displayed in
the stalls: brown, partly collapsed apples, oranges covered with blue-gray mold. Slowly they rode on, passing a tavern. Several bench tables were set outside the main doors, and on them were goblets and plates of mildewed bread and cheese.

Not a dog or a cat moved in the silence, and no flies buzzed around the decomposing food. In the clear sky above them no bird flew.

Gareth eased his horse alongside the mount carrying his mother and Sam. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“You will,” she promised him.

On they rode, through narrow streets and out onto broad avenues, the hoofbeats echoing through the city. Shannow loosened his pistols in their scabbards, his eyes scanning the deserted homes. Ahead of them was a huge coliseum five stories high, colossal, demonic statues surrounding it, images of demons, horned and scaled. Shannow drew back on the reins. “Where now?” he asked Amaziga.

“Lucas says that beyond the coliseum’s arena is a wide tunnel leading into the palace. The grounds beyond that contain the remnants of the stone circle.”

Shannow gazed up at the enormous building. “It must hold thousands,” he said.

“Forty-two thousand,” said Amaziga. “Let’s go on.”

The central avenue led directly to the bronze gates of the main entrance; they were open, and Shannow rode through into an arched tunnel. Many doorways opened onto stairs to the left and right, but the trio rode on and down, emerging at last into what had been a sand-covered arena.

Now it boasted a new carpet. Corpses lay everywhere, dried husks that once had been human. Shannow’s horse was reluctant to move on, but he urged it forward. The gelding stepped out gingerly, its hoof striking a corpse just below the knee; the leg snapped and fell away.

Shannow looked around as the horse slowly picked its way across the center of the arena. Row upon row of seats, in tier upon tier, ringed the circle. Corpses filled every seat.

“My God!” whispered Gareth Archer.

“No,” said Shannow, “
their
god.”

“Why would he kill them all? All his people?”

“He had no more use for them,” said Amaziga, her voice flat, cold, and emotionless. “He found a gateway to a land of plenty. What you see here is the result of his last supper.”

“Sweet Jesus!”

With great care they moved across the arena of death, and Gareth kept his eyes fixed on the distant entrance to yet another tunnel, wincing as dried bones broke beneath his mount’s hooves. At last they reached the far side, and Gareth swung in his saddle, looking back over the coliseum and its silent audience.

Forty-two thousand people, their bodies drained of moisture. He shuddered and followed the others down into the second tunnel.

The palace gardens were overgrown with weeds and bracken, and only three of the old stones were still standing. One of them had slipped to the right, showing a jagged crack on its side. Shannow dismounted and forced his way through the undergrowth. “Will the circle still … work?” he asked as Amaziga joined him.

“The stones are not important in themselves,” she told him. “They were merely placed by the ancients at points of great natural power.” Amaziga flicked the microphone into place and switched on the computer. Shannow wandered away, eyes raking the wall surrounding the garden and the balconies that overlooked what once had been a series of rose beds. He felt uncomfortable there, exposed. One rifleman creeping along behind those balcony walls could kill them all.

Samuel Archer approached him. “I have had no time to thank you properly, Mr. Shannow. I am grateful for your courage.”

Shannow smiled at the tall black man. “I knew another Sam Archer once,” he said. “I could not save him, and I have always regretted that.” He glanced to the left, where Gareth Archer was sitting quietly lost in thought, his face a mask of sorrow. “I think you should speak to him,” said the Jerusalem Man. Archer nodded.

Gareth looked up as the older man sat down on the marble bench beside him. “Soon be home,” said Gareth. “You’ll like Arizona. No Bloodstone.”

“It is always hard to gaze on the fruits of evil,” Sam said softly.

Gareth nodded agreement. “Forty-two thousand people. Son of a bitch!”

“Do you study history, Gareth?”

“Battle of Hastings, A.D. 1066; Second World War, A.D. 1939; War of Liberation, A.D. 2016,” said Gareth. “Yes, I studied history.”

“I didn’t mean the dates, son. You’ve just seen a multitude of the dead, yet Genghis Khan killed ten times as many people and Stalin murdered a hundred times more. Man’s history is hip-deep in Bloodstones. The dead that you saw
chose
to worship Sarento. They fed him their children and the children of other races. Lastly they fed him themselves. I mourn for their stupidity, but there is nothing new about a leader who leads his people to destruction.”

“There’s a cheering thought,” said Gareth.

Amaziga joined them. “Lucas says that we must wait four hours for a window home. It’s almost over, Sam.”

Samuel Archer stared at her intently, noting the lines of anguish on her beautiful face. “There is something else,” he said.

She nodded and glanced around to look for Shannow, but the Jerusalem Man was gone. “The Bloodstone is now in Shannow’s world,” she said.

Gareth swore. “Did we open the gate?” he asked bitterly.

“Lucas says not. Yet the fact remains that it is free to reduce another world to dust and death.”

“You once told me about Sarento,” said Gareth, anger in his voice. “You told me he wanted to see a return to the old world, hospitals and schools, care, love and peace. How could you be deceived by such a monster?”

Sam cut in. “He did want all those things,” he said. “He was a man in love with the past. He adored all aspects of twentieth- and twenty-first-century life. And he
did
care. Thirty years ago
there was a plague. The Guardians went out among the people with medicines and vaccines we hoped would eradicate it. We were wrong. Many of us died. Yet still Sarento went out until he himself succumbed. He almost died, Gareth, trying to help others. It was the Bloodstone that corrupted him. He is no longer the human Sarento we knew.”

“I don’t believe that,” snapped Gareth. “There must have been evil in him to begin with, you just couldn’t see it.”

“Of course there was,” said Amaziga. “As there is in all of us, in our arrogance, in our belief that we know best. But the Bloodstone enhances such feelings at the same time it drowns the impulses toward good. You have no idea of the influence of such stones. Even a small demonseed will drive a bearer to violence, unleashing the full force of the beast within man. Sarento took into himself the power of an entire
boulder.
”

Gareth rose and shook his head. “He knew the Bloodstone was evil even before he did that. I’ll not listen to excuses for him. I just want to know how we can kill him.”