Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel (50 page)

It was only inches away.

He fought the urge to scramble away
from it, to flee the circle.

A familiar chuckle drifted down. O’Doyle.

Then he saw it; something dark and
long, uncoiling, rearing in the shadows at the edge of the moonlight.

A snake. All their earlier talk of
rattlesnakes. O’Doyle had probably dropped it in.

Why this ploy? Would Adon really
risk killing him?

O’Doyle had said a snakebit man
would most assuredly lose consciousness…could Adon invade such a mind? No doubt
he knew for certain. O’Doyle wouldn’t do this without strict orders. No, Adon
was fulfilling two purposes. Get the information, and kill him in doing so. He
would be bit, slip into a feverish dream wherein Adon could navigate all his
secrets, and then in the morning they would find him dead and swollen, this
snake warming itself beneath his cooling body.

Then above him, O’Doyle cursed and
cried out briefly. There was a thud on the roof of the Dark Cell, and grit and
sand tumbled down the hole, upsetting the agitated snake in front of him even
more. The scraping and shuffling above continued, and then abruptly ceased.

The Rider moved his eyes from the
snake to the hole above in brief confusion.

The light flickered again moments
later.

Another snake dropped in.

Adon was taking no chances.

The hissing and rattling of the
newcomer seemed to infuriate the first rattler all the more.

It moved closer, retreating from the
other, right into his circle. The Rider and the snake saw each other at the
same time, the rattler bearing its dripping fangs, its forked tongue slipping
in and out, tasting his fear in the air, and perhaps the blood running from his
wounds.

The Rider knew if he made any sudden
movement or retreated from the circle the coiling rattlers would very likely
launch themselves at him. In his condition, there wasn’t any chance he would be
faster than a striking snake.

He sat as still as he could, sweat
mixing with his blood.

The second rattler crossed the shaft
of light. It had strange markings on its beaded back. They struck the Rider as
familiar somehow, but he couldn’t place the pattern.

The first snake turned at the
movement of its cousin, just as the second snake’s head shot forward, jaws
open. But the newcomer did not direct its attack at the Rider. Instead it
swiftly intercepted the dangerous predecessor. Its fangs plunged into the top
of the other reptile’s head. The body of the unfortunate creature jumped and
undulated, beating across the Rider’s knee, but the second snake remained
clamped down, and even wrapped its length around the body of its struggling
victim to quell its throes.

The Rider watched in mute fascination
as the first snake shuddered and succumbed to the other’s venom. Then the lower
jaw of its assassin dropped down, impossibly wide, and gathered the flat head
of the first into itself. Incredibly, in a matter of moments, the second had
totally consumed the first.

When it had finished, the snake’s
gold eyes regarded him. Then it slithered off to a dark corner. As it passed
through the moonlight once more, the Rider saw the strange dark patterns on its
yellowish body again. He shuddered, for he realized the mottled shapes were
Hebrew letters.

Taken together, along the length of
the snake, they spelled out the phrase;

“To the extent of God, let these
things come to pass.”

The same acrostic phrase etched into
the wood of the Rod of Aaron. A name of God.

Of course. His pain wracked brain
had been too slow to make the connection, even as the miraculous event happened
before his very eyes.

Hadn’t the Rod of Aaron devoured the
transformed staffs of Jannes and Jambres, Pharoah’s sorcerers?

That meant that Kabede, the damned
fool, had come. He was somewhere close by. The Rider cursed himself. He should
have known better than to think Dick could keep Kabede away when he left them
for Yuma.

If Kabede was here, the scroll was
with him.

If Adon got the scroll, whatever its
purpose was would be fulfilled. There might be no stopping the Hour of
Incursion if that happened.

So it couldn’t happen.

Damn Kabede for his puppy dog
loyalty! And damn Dick Belden for not being able to keep the man away.
Everything was at stake now.

What could he do to drive them away?
Even now they were plotting some ridiculous escape attempt to free him.

He had to escape first.

But how?

O’Doyle…O’Doyle had put the first
snake in here with him. Adon was expecting him to slip into unconsciousness any
moment under the influence of the venom. He planned to invade his dying mind.
Even now he was very likely preparing to leave Laird’s body and come to him, if
he was not patiently awaiting his arrival in the world of dreams already.

The Rod of Aaron. Transformed into a
snake, it had killed O’Doyle above and slithered into the hole to save him.
That was the commotion he’d heard on the roof. How long before someone noticed
his corpse? Perhaps O’Doyle wasn’t dead. Perhaps he’d slipped into the same
fever sleep intended for the Rider.

When his dying presence entered the
world of dreams instead of the Rider’s, Adon would immediately know what was
going on.

And what about Kabede? Was he inside
the prison walls? Was he even now just outside the Dark Cell, waiting in the
shadows of the yard? How could he have gotten in past the guards?

The Rider went to the corner of the
cell on his hands and knees, listening for the snake.

Then to his surprise, something slid
over his hand, something cold and leathery.

The snake had come to him.

He carried it back to the protective
circle and draped in his lap. He didn’t know how to change it back into the
staff. He tried touching the markings, saying the words there, but nothing
happened. The snake simply hung in his lap, heavy with its meal, tongue
flicking.

He waited a moment, listening. Was
he imagining he heard ragged breathing up above him?

He closed his eyes and breathed,
slipping into the
Yenne Velt
.

“Rider!”

It was Kabede. Or rather, his astral
form sitting on his haunches before him, shimmering.

“What are you doing here, you fool?”
the Rider hissed.

“I sent the Rod to you. Take it up
and use it to open the door and escape,” said Kabede, pointing to the iron
door. “Dick and I are waiting at the base of the hill, very close by. We have a
raft. We can be down the river in minutes.”

“That’s no good. The Quechans, the
guards.”

“I’ll worry about them,” said
Kabede. “Let’s go.”

“Wait! Adon’s here.”

Kabede paused.

“Adon?”

“Yes. We can’t leave. I’ve got to
face him.”

“Don’t be stupid. You’re weak now.
We’ve got to go and get the scroll.”

“Get it? Don’t you have it?”

“I left it with Spates for
safekeeping,” said Kabede.

Then the Rider stared.

“With Spates? You’ve never even met
Spates.”

“If you trust him, then I trust him,”
said Kabede. “Come now. Return to your body and use the staff to open the door.”

“I don’t know how to change it back,”
said the Rider, looking down at his body. But there was no snake in his lap.
Now the Rod of Aaron lay there.

“Let’s go,” Kabede urged.

“Wait…”

“No time. We’ll be discovered. I’ll
go outside and possess a guard to escort you out.”

“Kabede,” said the Rider
tentatively, concentrating.

“What?”

“Why did you leave Spates all alone
with the scroll? He’s in serious danger now that Adon knows his name.”

Kabede frowned, then smiled and
shook his head.

“It’s alright, Rider. I left my
brother Abatte to watch him.”

“Your brother Abatte died in Egypt,
opposing the
Corvée
on the Suez
Canal.”

Kabede’s expression fell slack, his
eyes narrowed.

“Did he?”

Then he solidified before the Rider’s
eyes. All the brilliant hues of the
Yenne
Velt
ran, even Kabede’s own skin pigment fled. The world melted and bent
into a patchwork, crazy universe of blacks, whites, and grays, the Dark Cell
and the ground falling away, the prison breaking, crumbling apart and floating
into a dizzying gulf of murky images and notions. Metaphors and concepts
drifted in and out of focus as though rising and falling just beneath the
surface of a boiling stew. It was totally disorienting.

This was a realm of impressions. The
collective whimsies of dreaming humanity, too numerous and fleeting for the
Rider to even process. He saw flashes of strangers and their lives, glimpses of
situations both absurd and horrifying, all rushing about in an inextricable
tangle at the speed of human thought, in the span of a falling eyelid or a
darting look, brushing each other and yet never colliding, like bats screeching
about an immense dark cave. It was too maddening to try to follow for long, and
so he concentrated on Adon, suspended before him, arms folded disapprovingly,
still wearing Kabede’s clothes, or rather, the Rider saw, a second hand
representation of them. Adon had never seen Kabede with his own eyes. He had
constructed this facsimile from the impressions of the Rider’s own mind. But as
the Rider looked at his costume and began to pick out the little
inconsistencies, they corrected themselves. The curve of his
shofar
. The color of his belt. The
details of his dagger. Was Adon correcting these, or was the Rider? It was
difficult to tell.

“Tricky, Rider,” said Adon, resuming
the face of Laird.

He spread out his arms.

“Yes. This is the world of dreams.
You and I stand apart, as observers. Not an easy thing to maintain. And there
are the collected dreams of all of humanity. I’m surprised you haven’t lost
your mind already.”

The Rider shut his eyes and balled
his fists.

“No use trying to awaken. You’ve
been drugged.”

“That smell in the office,” the
Rider said.

“Levonah and Liao, a drug distilled
from the Black Lotus. You wouldn’t know it. The frankincense was to mask its
scent. You know, in the old days, frankincense was burned in the Temple, but it
was also used to sedate those condemned to die.”

“Then the snake wasn’t real?”

“I’m afraid the first snake was.
Reality sometimes bleeds through here, like when you hear another’s voice in
your dream as they try to wake you. The drug took affect about the time you
were drawing in the dirt. Right now,” he said, squinting, as if observing
something far off, “it’s coiling beneath your head for warmth. When you awaken
it will strike.”

“Then
will
I awaken?”

“When I’m finished with you,” said
Adon. “Let’s start slowly, with your friend Kabede.”

Adon gestured out into the roiling
gulf, and a portion of the swirling dream stuff immediately coalesced into the
shape of Kabede.

The Rider tried to look away, but
found he couldn’t.

Adon put his hands behind his back
and studied the image.

“A Falashan Jew…” Adon murmured.

Behind Kabede, an entire world
sprang up around him. Huts, and veldts, water buffalo. Not Ethiopia proper, but
the Rider’s concept of Africa.

“There’s his village…his father, a
painter. Alright. Yes. Big family…”

People sprung up around Kabede. His father
painting a canvas. His mother…

The Rider tried to pull his way
across the void to Adon. No matter how much effort he put forth, he only seemed
to stay in place, as if he was trying to stroke against a powerful current, or
navigate a great muddy pit.

“Don’t bother,” said Adon, glancing
over his shoulder at the Rider. “You have no idea how to affect me on this
plane. The laws of the
Yenne Velt
do
not apply. You’re quite powerless.”

He turned back to the gulf of images
as a group of faceless men in the same costume as Kabede began to appear.

“What’s this? Those deceitful Elders…so
there
is
a surviving, hidden enclave.
Well,” he said, smiling at the Rider, “we shall have to correct that oversight.”

Then a brilliant domed palace rose
from the misty chaos, shining with heavenly brilliance, gilded with golden
columns and carvings of joyous angels and sparrows. They had both seen it
before in their Merkabah travels.

It was The Chamber of The Guf, a
palatial columbarium in a precinct of the Seventh Heaven, wherein the souls of
the unborn were stored. One sparkling sphere of light flitted from the dome,
and they followed its descent into the still growing African village, into the
womb of a woman in a sunlit field, stroking her swollen belly tenderly.