Council of Peacocks (12 page)

Propates shook his head. His throat was dry
and his whole body ached for moisture.

“
As for what you’ve become, only time will
tell. We are not like him. Not even close. The things I’ve seen him
do, they are inhuman. Maybe he’s one of the gods from Olympus and
maybe now we are demigods. I don’t really believe that, but it’s a
nice lie. A pretty lie. And it helps me get through the nights. I
suggest you find yourself a lie, something that will help you,
too.”

For decades, Propates traveled with Wisdom
and Andromeda. Most of that time was a blur of violence and excess.
They traveled to England where Wisdom conferred with hidden
remnants of the nearly extinguished Druidae. They met with
barbarian shamans throughout Europe and mystics in China. Wisdom
was looking for something, but he would not tell Propates what it
was. A brief stop near Rome gave him the opportunity to revisit the
family farm. It was mostly to confirm that Olivia was dead. She’d
died in her early thirties, childless and unmarried. The family
farm was now owned by the descendants of a distant cousin. Whatever
hope he had held that his unborn child had survived the repeated
rapes was destroyed.

Propates said goodbye to the last vestiges
of his former life.

Then they traveled deep into the jungles of
Africa, on the edges of the Kingdom of Aksum, and everything
changed. On that day, Propates learned to touch the shadows. It was
also the first time in centuries that Wisdom faced his father.

They arrived in the village just after
midday. Fresh from two years amongst the Parthian tribes traveling
the lands that would one day be Iran and Turkey, the three of them
were dressed in rich embroidered beige robes with loose cowls to
cover their heads. Wisdom still traveled with a small body of
soldiers but the majority of them kept to the outskirts of the
village, a gesture Wisdom hoped would avoid panic in the villagers.
Wisdom spoke the language of the region – he seemed to know the
language of every region – and quickly arranged for room and board.
Then he left Andromeda and Propates, disappearing into a hut
constructed of mud and straw with a man dressed only in bones and
leather.

“
What are we doing here?” Propates was
uncomfortably aware of the smell of freshly spilt blood in the air.
Something was being slaughtered nearby. He hoped it was for a
feast. He hoped it was an animal. “What is Wisdom looking
for?”

“
Answers.” Andromeda removed her cowl and
ran her fingers through her hair to remove the tangles. “Wisdom is
asking the medicine man here questions, the same questions he’s
asked the others. When he has answers, we will leave.”

“
Answers to what kind of questions?”
Propates looked around for a place to sit and only found the floor.
He decided to stand. “What does a man like him need answers for,
anyway? The way he talks, you’d think he already knows
everything.”

Andromeda smiled and brushed Propates’ bangs
away from his forehead. “You’ve barely changed at all. After all
these years you still look like you’re sixteen. Sometimes I wish
you were a little older.”

Propates reached up and touched Andromeda’s
hand. “I am old enough. I had a wife once, remember? A wife who is
long dead. Let me…”

“
No. Wisdom will...” Andromeda pulled her
hand away. “I cannot do this.”

“
Do you love him?”

Andromeda sighed and pulled even further
away. “We have a long day ahead of us. While Wisdom is conducting
his research, I suggest you find something to keep yourself
occupied.”

Then she was gone. It was the last time he
would see her for several hundred years.

Propates stayed inside the hut, sitting on
the dirt floor with his knees curled up to his chest. Whatever
Wisdom had done to him all those years ago had not only retarded
his aging process, it had also slowed his mental and emotional
growth. Despite his age, he still felt all the roiling emotions of
an adolescent.

“
Andromeda doesn’t love him,” he whispered
to himself. To his young mind, without love or the promise of
children there was no other reason for marriage. Only royalty or
heads of state married for political reasons. So to him, that meant
there was still a chance he could steal her away from
Wisdom.

He stood and began to exercise, using a
series of fluid yet physically strenuous movements he had learned
in Asia. Within moments, he was lost in the rhythm of movement.
Then he sensed something. A stirring in the shadows. He tensed,
shifting his consciousness out of his body to become fully aware of
his surroundings. At the back of the hut, behind a stack of clay
jars and animal pelts, something was moving in the darkness.

“
I see you,” he said. “Come out.” The
shadows churned and Propates realized it was not someone or
something moving in the shadows. Rather, the shadows seemed to be
redistributing themselves around something.

“
What are you?”

His heart beat forcefully in the silence.
For a moment, there was nothing. Then a sound, sibilant like the
clicking of pebbles underfoot and the drifting of sand in the wind,
spoke from the shadows. “I come as a warning,” it said. As it
spoke, the shadows swirled in jerky motions. “One of the Invisible
Ones is coming: one of the Smokeless Fire. All will be consumed by
him. He comes for his son and nothing will stop him.”

Propates took a step closer to the shadows.
“That means nothing to me, demon. Stop talking in riddles. Tell me
what you are!”

“
We are friends, Propates. We have known
you since Wisdom touched you the first time. He has shown you
nothing and he never will. Come to us, touch us and you will be
shown things beyond your current understanding. But we must hurry.
The Invisible One is almost here.”

Propates studied the figure submersed in the
gloom, his whole being tensed and waiting for an attack. When it
did not come from the shadows, he turned and exited the hut.

“
Damnable shade,” he whispered and spat on
the ground. It was not his first experience with an incorporeal
parasite. Several times in China, but more often amongst the
Parthian tribes, he witnessed attempts at possession by creatures
from Beyond. This was obviously some sort of fiend sent to tempt
him, lure him to Hades so it could steal his body. He had to find
Wisdom and let him know about the attempt. Wisdom would know what
to do.

He was so focused on the need to find Wisdom
that he did not see what was right in front of him. The village was
quiet. Nothing moved, not even the leaves of the trees all around
him. He looked above the trees and bit his lips. The sky was purple
and red, like a bruise, and the clouds ran briskly through the
heavens. A determined wind blew them but did not touch the
earth.

“
Wisdom?” The village absorbed his voice
and offered nothing in return. He felt a chill that had nothing to
do with wind rush through his body. As a child, he’d been taught
this meant a larva, one of the restless dead, was reaching out to
him in warning. He had never really believed it until that
moment.

“
Wisdom?”

A tree branch cracked in the distance.

“
Andromeda?”

Silence.

Propates walked further into the village,
past circular straw huts and the tree to which only recently the
village had secured its cows. There was no one to be seen. Even the
cows were gone, though the leather thongs that had held them in
place remained. Fire still smoldered in the shallow fire pits and
the smell of blood was thick in the air. But where were the people?
Where were the bare-chested mothers grinding grain, the toothless
old women making pottery, the naked children chasing each other
through the dust? He’d seen them all as he had come into the
village. He walked a little further and heard a soft sound. His
eyes quickly spotted the source – a small red-clay bowl filled with
grain spun with diminishing speed. Propates knelt beside it and
stopped its spinning with his fingertips.

And one again, silence.

‘
Wherever they went,’ he thought, ‘they
left recently. And very suddenly.’

Something moved behind him. Propates turned
so quickly he tripped over his own feet and fell on the ground. His
eyes shot to the spot the movement had come from, but now he could
see nothing. Then something charged out of the woods, an
indescribable mess of torn flesh and exposed bones. Only as it grew
closer did Propates recognize the dark skin, the threatening mounds
of muscle in the shoulders and the look of rage on the shredded
face.

Wisdom.

Something had done this to Wisdom.

“
What…?”

Wisdom glanced at him. For a second, he was
not sure he even recognized him.

A roar came from out of the jungle, a sound
like screaming children and the smashing of boulders. Bolts of
lightning danced a web of electricity in the now-cloudless sky
above. Daylight bled out of the air. It grew darker and darker.
Propates looked for the sun. It was still there, but with every
passing moment it gave off less and less illumination. He jumped as
Wisdom grabbed him by the arms and abruptly pulled him closer. Face
to face, Propates determined the look he had mistaken for rage was
actually fear.

Wisdom said: “Run.”

The shredded man pushed him away and then
turned back to the woods. Fire sprang up along Wisdom’s body,
shrouding him in bright red flame. The sound came again from the
woods and it was enough to shatter the last of Propates' nerves. He
screamed and ran wildly, barely aware of where he was going. It was
as dark as night now, the only light coming from the web of
lightning above. In his panic, Propates ran right into a hut and
through the straw wall. There was movement to his left, something
moving and twitching in the shadows, a swirl of barely visible
colors with a sense of enormous mass behind it. Then from out of
the darkness, there was a hand, human in shape but black and airy
like a shadow. It was followed by a slender arm. It beckoned to
him. Then something spoke.

“
Last chance.”

This time, there was no hesitation. Propates
reached out to the shadow hand. He felt a rush of cold consume him.
Then he was just gone.

***

Propates left his office, signed an invoice
his secretary held out to him, and headed toward the elevator. One
level down, he stepped off the elevator and nodded to the
white-robed acolyte who sat behind the reception desk.

Even the ceremonial floor required
administration now. Two stories below the apartment complex, the
ceremonial floor was connected to centuries-old tunnels that ran
from here to the White Tower in one direction, far beyond the city
limits in the other direction. Most of the rooms currently used by
the Council of Peacocks were newly constructed, like this foyer.
The flooring here was pristine white tile. On the ceiling, fifteen
feet above Propates' head, was a mosaic of a peacock landing in
Paradise surrounded by Edimmu, while in the distance the spirit of
Argus with his hundred eyes looked on with a smile. The ceremonial
floor had been built mostly by the Edimmu and, being much taller
than humans, they required more space. Enclosed spaces reminded
them of their subterranean cities. It reminded them of their
descent into slavery.

Propates left the foyer and walked briskly
down a tunnel constructed from sand-colored bricks. There was no
one else in sight, which annoyed him. Everyone else was probably
already dressed and in the Vulture Antechamber. As Argus’
representative on Earth, Propates should have been the first one
contacted in case of emergencies, not the last. Lucius and Otto had
apparently forgotten their place in the scheme of things. Maybe it
was time to remind them.

The entrance to the cloakroom was guarded on
either side by an Edimmu. Both were male, their scaly visages
touched with flecks of black and yellow. Both wore ceremonial
uniforms – leather kilts, knee-high sandals and heavy claymores
strapped to their waists. Like most of the young Edimmu, neither
guard wore a shirt nor had any body hair. Neither acknowledged him
as he walked between them. They served him now out of need and
fear, not loyalty.

He stripped off his business attire and
slipped into a heavy robe lined on the inside with soft felt. The
outside of the robe was constructed entirely of peacock feathers.
Underneath it he wore a simple white tunic that hung to his knees.
All members of the inner circle dressed the same, a remnant of
times when to be a member of the Council of Peacocks was a death
sentence. The cloak came with a thick cowl that hid the
practitioner’s face. What once was a pretext of privacy was now a
reminder of humility and the heritage of the Council.

The Vulture Antechamber was dark. The only
light came from small fires burning in copper braziers, one on each
of the five raised funeral platforms that encircled the raised dais
at the center of the room. The dais itself was thirteen feet in
diameter, one foot for each lunar month in a year. If viewed from
above, the platforms looked like black rays shooting out from a
black sun. Around the edge of the dais stood life-sized statues of
vultures carved from black marble. They looked outward over the
funeral platforms, a carry-over from a magical rite that only
Propates and the Edimmu remembered.

Frankincense and myrrh were heavy in the air,
the incense so thick it hung like mist. In the shadowy recesses of
the cavernous room, acolytes and Edimmu chanted quiet incantations
in Greek. On the dais, just inside the vulture statues, five
figures in robes identical to the ones Propates wore knelt nearly
equidistantly around the circle. Their cowls covered their faces
and they remained silent as Propates took his place at the Eastern
Edge, completing the circle.