Echoes of Avalon (Tales of Avalon Book 1) (31 page)

Minion fell to the floor with a thud.

“Many uses,” Loki said, snapping the locket shut and placing it in his vest pocket, “like making invisible doors open as wide as I want them to.”

Minion brushed himself off, though not a trace of the powder was on him. “So why are you waiting to do it?”

Loki sighed heavily. “Alas, this here is the last of what I have. Most of the uses for the powder require that it be consumed. Some was lost in just that small demonstration. But that is what all this is for.” He gestured at the gathered paraphernalia on the table.

Minion frowned.

“We are going to make more,” Loki explained. “Please, touch the tip of the rod sticking out of the jar.”

Minion did as commanded.

A blue spark arced from the rod even before he could touch it, and he leapt back clutching his hand, crying out.

“You see, the powder comes from gold or some other equally precious metal. In order to turn gold into the powder, you need this.” Loki stroked the outside of the jar, which did nothing. “Once I’ve converted that lump of gold into the magic powder, and with the proper celestial bodies in alignment in a few months time, I can float an entire galleon through that portal into the fairy realm at the lake!”

Minion jumped up and down, infected with Loki’s energy. “Let’s do it master! I want to see the gold change!”

“Yes, yes, let’s,” Loki said, and caught himself rubbing his hands together like Minion. He wiped his hands on his trousers, regained his composure, and reached for the candle-snuffer end of the chain.

He positioned the snuffer over the tip of the metal rod protruding from the jar, dropped it, and jumped back when a spark sizzled at the contact. His eyes were big with anticipation, his fists raised in the air ready to be jubilant.

Aside from the gold color fading some, however, not much else happened.

And though his fists remained in the air, Loki’s expression faded as well.

Minion maintained an idiot’s grin, but it was strained as he looked nervously between his master and the lump of gold.

“Touch the gold,” Loki said.

“But master...” Minion whined, clutching his still-stinging hand.

“
Touch it
.”

Closing his eyes, Minion reached out and grasped the lump of gold and sighed when he felt nothing but lukewarm metal.

“Dammit!” Loki pounded his fist on the table, causing the jar to bounce and Minion to jump back. For an encore, Loki picked up the whole jar and threw it against the nearest wall, where it exploded into a shower of shards, acrid liquid, and jangling copper parts.

He turned the table over in a cacophony of tumbling metal utensils and moved to the window like a whirlwind of rage. At the window, Loki threw the shudders open and once again shouted, “Dammit!” and beat his fists on the windowsill.

Then just as suddenly as his outburst started, it stopped. He plopped down in the chair before the window, a sullen look on his face. Minion crouched in the corner.

“That size a jar should have sufficed,” Loki mused out loud after an interminable amount of time had passed. “Perhaps I would have had to refill it once...maybe twice...with fresh electrolyte, but it should have worked.”

He looked up, a spark of hope in his eyes. “Maybe the materials are too crude...or maybe, I need a bigger vessel!” But just soon as he reasoned this to himself, the spark in his eyes went out. “No, no, the gold barely turned
color!
The best material and a jar ten times that size probably wouldn’t do either.”

At length, he leaned over and put his head in his hands.

“Has the world changed that much?” It was more of a statement than a question. Minion didn’t dare make a noise. “
This
place, Avalon, is the best the world has to offer? So what if the weather is near perfect? So what if the sky is bluer than blue, the grass greener than green, and the air perfumed of apple blossom? What good is all that to me? I hunger for...”

Loki froze. Something in his view caught his attention.

“Perfect weather,” he said detachedly. “Rarely a cloud in the sky...but rainbows.”

His voice trailed off as he stood and leaned out the window and took a good long look at the countryside beyond the keep walls. At rolling green hills, at lush forests and at the dazzling blue sky.

He sat back down in his chair, a dumbfounded look on his face.

“Could it be?” he whispered.

Chapter Eight

The end of the world began with sand hissing against a tent, a sound like the grains disappearing down the throat of an hourglass. Lokutis sat up clenching his chest, legs hanging over the edge of the mattress, and waited for a long moment until a deep breath rattled out of his lungs, and then he collected himself. He wrapped a crimson robe about his pale shoulders and ducked outside to wait for dawn.

As the tent flap fell shut, the air filled with the sound of fluttering wings. Something large had been resting above the tent door, and was taking flight directly into the sunrise. A solitary sand-colored feather drifted down to him, and he shielded his eyes to get a better look at his visitor. It looked like a large vulture, but the crimson light tangled around its silhouette. Something about the creature struck him as odd, but it was gone, and other problems weighted his thoughts.

Lokutis plodded through the sand, picking his way through obstacles that were at first just rocks, then mason stones, and then broken portions of walls. He looked back one more time, just to check. The tent was of the nomadic design, but enlarged to make a small mountain of shimmering silk, crimson like his robe with gold trim. His simple black banner oscillated serpent-like from the pinnacle. The sky above it was empty.

He stopped at a waist-high circle of mortared stones that contained a spring
―
the pool spilled continuously over the stone lip and soaked into the sand. He thrust his hands into the cool water and splashed his face. He let the water run down his throat and robe. Then, leaning heavily on one elbow, he cupped more water in his palm and wiped it across the back of his neck. He let the liquid wash away the night's sweat, but it could not wash away the memory of the nightmare.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” said a voice behind Lokutis.

He turned and saw his advisor, awake, silhouetted in the first razor thin line of sunlight. His violet robe and black sash fluttered around his lanky form. His skin was as dark and as smooth as obsidian. His strange almond shaped eyes did not rest on his master, but gazed past his shoulder to the tower.

“Indeed, Akahamet,” Lokutis replied.

“Do you intend on finishing it?” Akahamet asked, arching a painted eyebrow. The rising sun glinted off his shaven head. “Is that why you asked that the meeting take place in its shadow?”

Above the valley walls the sun washed the ruins, turning them surreal and red, more alive than at midday when everything became the same dead color. A field of toppling columns sent fingers of shadow across the valley floor, toward the megalithic ruins, ruins so huge that from a distance they easily would have been mistaken in the darkness for another of the valley’s craggy peaks.

A tower. A monster.

Well, it should have been. A broad road started at the base, then circumscribed the bottommost tier and appeared on the outside of the next highest, now more narrow. This concourse continued ever so higher right up to the point where construction had ended. Even there, if the dimensions stayed relative, the road must have been broad enough to allow four oxcarts to travel abreast of each other, miles above the valley floor.

In the distance a large pair of wings coasted around the tower, hunting. It was probably the thing that had crept up to his tent
―
probably a vulture that had been enticed by the smells of his camp. It circled the road and disappeared around one side of the tower, the side that was partially collapsed. There, the architecture was exposed, and probably sheltered many rodents in the great halls meant for men.

Each of the tower’s tiers was a man-made shell circling the outside of a core of natural rock—the tower was constructed around a landform. Monstrous arches fixed the shell walls to the mountain core, and six of these radiated outward at each tier. Between the arches stretched out secondary arms, from each corner, that reached out to one another. They united in the center like four hands clasping together, forming a vaulted ceiling for one section of a tier, which in turn would be the floor for another. The network of keystones that kept the megalithic bridgework suspended in air was mind-boggling.

The mountain core was un-hewn at its lower portions, but its peak had been shaped into a perfect cylinder—chiseled down to a smooth circular platform. Not satisfied with the height at this point, the builders had used this platform as a new base for a lattice of arches that supported yet another tier.

It was at this point that construction had come to an abrupt halt. Arching spans hung incomplete. The shell wall was only partially bricked, exposing the frame. The winding road emptied into nothingness. Judging from the width of the last level, there was plenty of room to continue skyward with the tier within tier method of construction before it had to come to an inevitable stop. With one level growing out of another, reaching ever higher, it gave the impression of something organic―like a hollow reed of marsh grass. Or perhaps, with its side crumbled away, revealing a thousand-score arches and chambers, a honeycomb, or the broken shell of a nautilus. Were the builders trying to copy nature? Improve upon its perfection? Or were some designs simply inevitable?

In any case, the tower was a wonder. To see a manmade structure rising from the valley floor, subduing an entire mountain, first inspired shock, followed briefly by disbelief, and then paralyzing awe. It was a city in the sky.

“Were I to finish it,” said Lokutis, “Jhove would curse me and thwart my efforts, just as he has done to every generation that has presumed to build on it.”

Akahamet nodded. “How long is man’s memory? A thousand years? It seems that every millennium some king tries to complete it, believing that he is the one whom Jhove will overlook while they build a monument of self-aggrandizement. But you would know more about that than I.”

Lokutis raised an eyebrow. “About what? Self-aggrandizement?”

Akahamet laughed. “That too, but I meant more about the time between attempts. You are the ancient one, the Nephilim, not I.”

Lokutis laughed as well. He liked his advisor’s sense of humor. “No, I will not be finishing the tower,” he said, splashing more water in his face. “Jhove may be an absent god, but the minute you do something to capture his attention—” he gestured at the tower, “—he will make up for all the millennia he was silent. And not by way of a friendly apology. No, I prefer to keep to the shadows and run my little empire from there. As for who will build on it next, I don’t know. Perhaps it will be Marduk. Perhaps that is why he asked for this ridiculous transaction.”

Lokutis turned to the camp and started back towards the array of tents. They looked like paper lanterns strewn among the sand and rocks. The sight of his own tent door reminded him of his abrupt awakening; he had gone out seeking water, hoping to ease the knot in his stomach brought on by the dreams. He rubbed his temple, rubbing at the images of jeering children, their rocks hurling at him. Their shouts and taunts.

Akahamet trailed behind. “In all seriousness, my lord, your captains are wondering why you chose to hold the meeting here.”

“What? Oh. Marduk and his people are a superstitious lot. They will be less likely to commit treachery while in the presence of a testament to what happens to oath breakers.” And he added, “It is practical, too. The captains should understand that. We may need the narrow valley mouth and our soldiers today.”

“You are worried, then?”

“No, not worried. But it pays to be cautious.”

Movement commenced in the camp, slow at first, then picking up pace as tent flaps were flung open and a few of the captains and the camp herald prepared for their duties.

Akahamet said, “You rose early for some reason, my lord. The dreams again?” When Lokutis did not respond right away, he added, “But it is none of my business.”

Lokutis grunted, and mused out loud, “The past should stay buried, and not resurface in dreams. The dead should stay buried.”

An awkward moment passed. Akahamet turned his attention back to the tower.

“You know what I think?” he said. “It’s as you say: Jhove is an invisible and silent god. The people build this tower, over and over again, not to flaunt their accomplishments, not to compete with his creations...but to get his attention. So he will react. It’s like a child acting out. A cry for attention. Even bad attention is better than none.”

“You are wise, my friend,” Lokutis said, smiling. He placed a hand on Akahamet’s shoulder as they walked. His advisor knew the story, and his oblique comfort found its mark. He leaned against the well. “Godhood, it’s about giving the people what they want. I fulfill their needs and they worship me for it. I fill the void where Jhove is absent.”

“You needn’t be a god or even a Nephilim to receive my thanks and praise, my lord,” Akahamet said, his voice once again deep and sincere. “If it were not for you, I’d still be a slave in Cush.”

Lokutis faltered briefly, an image of shackles around his own wrists flashed across his mind. “If you really wish to thank me, you can stop calling me Nephilim. It sounds too much like ‘half-breed’ to me. ‘God’ will do just fine.”

They both laughed and Lokutis felt the knot in his stomach completely unravel. The sound of jeering children quieted in his head and the image of a dirty boy hiding under a building blurred away. The laughter felt good and he let the morning breeze carry his tension from him.

“Woe!” boomed a strange voice.

They spun in its direction. On top of a weather-worn pillar was a peculiar creature. It was about the size and shape of a leopard, but with plain sandy colored fur. Its feet were chitinous talons, like a hawk’s. On its back, extending from between its shoulder blades, were a pair of great motley wings, and if all that were not strange enough, its head was crowned with a mane like a lion’s, but peering out from it was a vaguely human face.