The Centaur (12 page)

“I guess I did. I just wish he would have returned the favor.” Nicole pouted slightly and then picked up her tea and her face brightened noticeably. “But I love you more. You’re a lot more fun.” She smiled at Mark Andrew and patted his arm. “Does it hurt?”

“What?” He asked somewhat alarmed by the question.

“Your head, goose, does it hurt?” She frowned sympathetically and looked closely at the bandage Sophia had taped on his head.

“It’s fine, Nicole. It looked worse than it was and you know how head wounds bleed.” Sophia finished putting the supplies back in the box and closed the lid. “Why are you worried about the date, Mark?”

“October 15th.”  He said as if the repetition of the date told all. “Tomorrow is the sixteenth.”

“Of course.” Sophia smiled and shook her head.

“October 16th.”

“What about October 16th, Daddy?” Nicole became a bit less condescending as she perceived his expression.

“The number of the day is 5. Ten, sixteen, twenty-one twelve. That is the year. I learned that from the calendar on your desk, Sophia.” Mark spoke quietly. “The date tomorrow is October 16th, 2112. The number of the day is five. Five is the number of the Quintessence. The fifth element. The fifth element is the Quintessence.”

“Oh, Daddy.” Nicole brushed back her hair and let go a relieved sigh. “You scared me. I thought you were talking about alchemy. I told you that I would teach it to you someday, but it takes time.”

“Not really.” Mark smiled at her and lifted his chin slightly. “Take for example every fifth line of the
Donum Dei
.
But if he do chiefly and principally know the natural causes of himself and know not the other, yet hath he the way to the way of the principles of the Art.
I can assure you, my sweet daughter, that I know myself quite well and thus, so I know alchemy and further I know of the Philosopher’s Stone and the Fifth Element.
You shall find it everywhere, in the plains, on the mountains, and in the waters, as well the poor as the rich hath it.
” He continued to smile as Nicole’s lively features withdrew in shadow. “The Fifth Element. What is the number of this planet, Nicole?”

“Earth is the third rock from the sun,” she made the joke and did not laugh.

“And the fourth planet, Sophia?” Mark turned to his nervous nursemaid as she sat down on the bench beside Nicole.

“Mars,” she answered rotely.

“And the Fifth?”

“Saturn.”

“Wrong!” Mark sat up straighter. “Basic astrology of eons past. Anyone who was anyone knew that the fifth planet was Vulcan. Vulcan, which was torn asunder in the great turmoil between the gods. All that is left now is a circle of desolate rocks, commonly called the Asteroid Belt by modern science. Pieces of Vulcan were ripped and torn and thrown about all over the heavens and many pieces fell to earth… everywhere. The fifth element is Vulcan’s corpse, bits and pieces of that once beautiful jewel in the night sky. Anyone may pick it up from the ground, from the barren places where the bones of the earth lie exposed. In the snowy wastelands where time crawls by, pieces of lost Vulcan may be found. But as above so below. The Great Stone Circle in the Heavens. The Great Stone Circles on the Earth. Same and different.”

“What else do you know, Daddy?” He had Nicole’s attention now.

“
The first is black, the second white and the third red, there be many colors, but they be not to be cared for, for they vanish away oftentimes before the whiteness. The putrefaction of the Philosophers is the head of the Crow, a blackness transparent and shining.
” Mark quoted more of the
Donum Dei
. The ancient treatise on the manufacture of the philosopher’s stone.

“I don’t understand.” Sophia looked to Nicole for an explanation, but Mark continued.

“
Understand the gift of God, receive it and hide it from all unwise philosophers, for it is not hidden from the caverns of the metals, which stone is mineral, and animal, shining colors, or high hill, and an open sea
.”

“Mark, you’re scaring me.” Sophia began to grow aggravated with him.

“
Know that this science is none other than the perfect inspiration of God. Here is our new black son born, and the name of him shall be called Elixir
.”

“Mark, stop it! You know very well that we already agreed to call our son, if we have a son, Michael Emmanuel.”

Sophia stood up, but Nicole caught her arm and shook her head in warning. Something very strange was going on here and she did not want Sophia to interfere.

“Go on, Daddy. Sophia is just going to listen.” Sophia sat down again, but was obviously upset now.

“
Therefore he that can wed a wife and get her with child and mortify and quicken again the kinds of generations and can cleanse and bring in light, and to separate the shine thereof from blackness and darkness, shall be of most great dignity.
” Mark stopped talking suddenly and Nicole’s chin slipped off her hand. She had been watching him and listening to him intensely. “That’s all I know. I have seen the head of the crow and the white. Shining and beautiful, a good thing. And the crow? All darkness and yet full of innocence, without guile, at the mercy of the master.”

“Daddy.” Nicole stood up. “You’ve been reading Edgar Allen Poe, haven’t you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“All right then. You’ve been reading Sir Ramsay’s old books. You’ve got to stop doing this. You know that Sophia’s condition is delicate and she does not need to be frightened. My God, sometimes I can ever hear her screams on the third floor. You should be more careful.” Nicole continued to fuss at Mark until Sophia intervened.

“That’s enough Nicole. He didn’t mean to scare anyone, did you, Mark?” Sophia smiled a sickly smile at him and he nodded.

“You did?” Sophia’s expression changed again. Nicole picked up the first aid box and shoved into Sophia’s arms, ushering her toward the front hall as Mark continued. Sophia looked back, but Nicole was insistent.

“All should be frightened of what is to come. It does no good to talk about it. Tomorrow will be an interesting day, but I have a lot of work to do today.”

Nicole sent Sophia packing and returned to Mark’s side.

“Before you do that, I want to show you Sophia’s flowers. They are already beginning to bloom.” Nicole took his arm. “Won’t you take a walk with me in the garden?”

Mark Andrew took her chin in his hand and smiled at her. “You are truly a flower yourself, Nicole. The Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valleys. These do not compare to your beauty.”

“Stop it, Daddy. You’ll make me blush.” Nicole laughed as they walked toward the back door.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

“What are we going to do with all of them?” Simon asked as he peeked out the flap of the tent again. People had begun to appear during the night. Where they had thought no one could possibly live, it seemed the nomadic herders were hardier than they had, at first, predicted. They had come into the encampment, bringing their women and children, sons and daughters. Not far away from the outskirts of the camp could be seen, heard and smelled, their flocks. Their chief and their imam had decided that the armies camped at the foot of the Holy Mountain were sent from Allah to bring peace and tranquility back to their lands.

“Well, for one thing, we cannot accept all those boys into our service.” Edgard joined him at the tent flap. A semi-circle of young men dressed in black and white robes, sat staring at them from large, dark eyes. “The acceptance of children into the order is prohibited by the Primitive Rule. How old do you think they are? Ten, eleven? Too young to fight and too young to decide for themselves. Send them back to their fathers with apologies and gratitude. Offer them something else instead for their willingness to sacrifice their sons to the cause. Tell them we are well able to handle this operation, but they are welcome to camp out there with their flocks and we’ll try to protect them from the creatures. When we are finished here, they are welcome to come with us back to more civilized climes.”

“That might appease them,” Aristoni de St. Claire agreed with Edgard’s proposal from where he sat near a folding table, drinking thick, freshly brewed beer from a metal cup. “I really don’t understand how they could have survived here with their flocks no less. It must have been harrowing. They look healthy enough.”

“They are displaced Zoroastrians. There is some occult power amongst them. They know a bit of magick, I think.” Edgard turned away and resumed his nervous pacing.

“Do they?” Mark Andrew’s familiar voice made them all look up.

“Du Morte, by God!” Edgard rushed toward the
Chevalier
and to everyone’s surprise grasped him in a bear hug. “It’s good to see you! Where have you been?”

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

“Did you miss me?” Lemarik plopped down on the floor beside his distraught son’s cot.

Omar rolled his head to the right and simply stared at him.

“Do not tell me my beautiful son is already forgetting all the joyous things to be celebrated.” Lemarik frowned slightly. “Look what I have brought you, my son.” He held out his hand and in it was a small wooden box, very dark and pitted with thousands of tiny craters all over its surface.

“Is it my birthday?” Omar asked. His voice was lifeless, just as Luke Andrew had warned the Djinni that it was so.

“You are afraid to face your past.” Lemarik subsided back from him and Omar returned his gaze to the ceiling of the tattered purple and white tent. “I cannot feel sympathy for you in this. What we do now is always what we find in the future. Your future has come, my son. It is time for you to rise up and take what is yours. What you do with it after it is in your hands is up to you. I have some interesting news that might make you feel ashamed rather than afraid.”

“Oh, that’s just what I need. Something else to make me feel better. What is your news, Father? Have all the prostitutes I killed come back from their graves to
visit me? Has my son created another abomination? Or is it more tales of the atrocities committed in my name in New Babylon?”

“No. No. No. No. No!” Lemarik leaned forward and his dark eyes glittered with a touch of anger. “Your sister, Dunya, is at the siege of Babylon wearing your colors in your honor. Your grandmother is also there on your behalf as are Aurora, Meredith, Michey and the great Queen of the Abyss, I dare not say her name for she has waxed greatly in power since her reunion with the terrible Lord of the Fifth Gate. They, along with the Luminary and his band of warriors, lay siege to your city and the people cry out against the Queen Mother. She has taken to ground like a rat.” Lemarik shuddered at the thought of the great Huber. “And guess who is with her, my beautiful son. Take a divine guess.”

Omar turned his head again slightly.

“Who? Satan?” Omar’s voice held much bitterness and self-contempt.

Lemarik leapt to his feet and grabbed his son by the collar of his purple and white overlay, jerking him to his feet brutally. He drew back one hand as if to slap the Prophet and stopped. They stared into each other’s eyes for several seconds and then Lemarik dropped him. He fell back on the cot.

“I’m sorry, Father.” Omar looked down at his hands. “Who is with the Queen Mother?”

“Abaddon, our old friend.” Lemarik’s friendlier tone had disappeared. He did not resume his seat, but began to poke around the tent, looking into cans, baskets, boxes, knapsacks, everything. “He has gone to her side and taken her a great weapon. I will not disclose the nature of it to you in your present condition, which…” he spun around as a purple blur and wagged one long finger at his son “I might say is deplorable. There are great powers at work for you, Omar. Great powers. And you are indifferent to them.” His sing-song voice held Omar’s attention. Omar had only just been wishing that his father would visit him and now he was here and nothing had changed. “In fact, your reaction to my news is insolent. I am ashamed of you. You have Bari.” He pulled out a long, golden scarf from an overturned basket and tossed it up in the air. The cloth drifted down onto Omar’s head. “You have my brother, Luke.” He pulled a red scarf from the basket and repeated the motion. Omar sat perfectly still as the sheer material fell over his face. “You have me.” A purple scarf fluttered through the air. “You have your grandmother.” Again a white scarf fell over him. “You have your lovely sister and your nieces.” Three more scarves of shimmering silver, green and yellow floated through the air. “Even the Queen of the Abyss.” He tossed a trailing black scarf toward his son. The scarves formed layers over the Prophet’s head. “And finally…” he produced a red cloth glinting with sparkling gold from the formerly empty basket. “You have Lucifer and all his angels on your side. What more veils could a Prophet ask? They stand ready to support you, to shield you and protect you… to die for you.”

“They cannot die.” Omar muttered from under the cloths.

“What did you say?” Lemarik bent close to him.

Omar dragged the mass of material from his head and looked up at his father with a bit more life in his eyes. “They cannot die.”