The Crusader ("The Crusader" Prequel to "Kingdom Come") (2 page)

"Get
on with it then." The English accent was scarcely a whisper.

Sensing
resigned faith, Kaleef resumed his actions with an increasing measure of
urgency. As the fire in the hearth crackled and spit, the old man leaned over
the dying warrior and dispensed two more potions. The alchemist poured, Kieran
drank, and the rain outside grew more violent as if to disapprove of the men
attempting to cheat death.

In
truth, Kaleef wasn't attempting to cheat death, merely delay the final judgment
for a time. As long as the English knight was willing to submit, the old man
would administer the correct potions in the correct sequence. A recipe he had
spent the better part of his life developing, never tested on mortal man until
this very moment. But the Englishman need not be made aware of that small,
insignificant detail.

"Wh...what
are you giving me?" Kieran's voice was weaker.

Kaleef
lifted the Englishman's head one final time, pouring the last of the
bitter-tasting liquid down his throat. "'Tis the Recipe."

Kieran
was too frail to open his eyes, lest he would have cast the man a dubious
glance. "R...Recipe?"

The last
of the Recipe administered, Kaleef collected a series of linen rags, unclean,
to press them against the oozing wound. "A mixture you would not
understand, Sir Knight. Succotrine aloes, zedoary gentian, saffron, rhubarb and
agaric have I placed within your wounded body. The Recipe will suspend your
mortal functions while a healing potion mends your injury."

Kieran
could feel the old man as he wrapped his torso in linen strips. "This...
this healing potion. What does it contain?"

"Ram’s
blood, Owl's flesh, snakeskin, various roots and plants."

Had
Kieran not been so ill, he would have reacted with disgust. Instead, he found
himself unconcerned with the vile elixir so long as it bore the promise of
restoration. "How long will it take?"

Kaleef's
movements slowed, gazing down at the ashen face. For the first time that eve,
his confidence and determination seemed to falter. "The healing will take
place in nominal time," his voice was quiet. "There is another
matter, however. The matter of reviving you."

Kieran
heard the odd words, his mind floating on a hazy mist of herbs and elements and
mystical powers. Oddly enough, the pain was gone only to be replaced by a
numbing lethargy; he could no longer feel his legs and his torso was growing
dull as well.

"Re...revive..?"

Kaleef
retrieved a coarse woolen blanket from his bed, wrapping it about the dying
Englishman. There was nothing left to do now but wait; if the injury had
drained too much of his life away, then the potions would do nothing. But if
the dying process had been intercepted in time, then the English knight would
have a chance of survival.

As the
fire in the hearth died and the pounding rain seemed to quiet, Kaleef lowered
himself beside the supine warrior. Gazing into the pallid face of even features
and square jaw, he patted the man on the arm in a comforting gesture.

 "There
is only one method I have been able to discover that will revive you from the
endless sleep of the Recipe," he said quietly. "You must understand,
Sir Knight, it has been my life's dream to discover an elixir to Immortality, of
which I am positive gold is a primary ingredient. The Recipe is a failed result
of one such endeavor; although it is quite sufficient in putting one to sleep,
never aging, revival is another matter."

Kieran
heard him, too weak to respond. In fact, at that very moment, he almost didn't
care if he ever awoke or not; the pain was gone, the apprehension and
exhaustion was vanished. He was finally at peace and grateful for such a
miracle. God only knew, he hadn't been at peace in nearly two years.

Kaleef
knew the knight was listening, even if he hadn't responded. With a long sigh,
his black gaze moved to the glowing embers of the hearth.

"I
had a pet monkey when I was young, a monkey who grew ill with age until I
finally administered the Recipe to prolong his life. The little beast slept for
forty years until I unknowingly awakened him with an affectionate kiss. An
accidental discovery, I assure you."

Kieran
was fading fast, the fog of darkness descending on his drug-entrapped mind.
Kaleef turned his gaze to the dying warrior, knowing that time was growing
short. Within a few short moments, the man would be entering a timeless limbo
and the alchemist hastened to inform him of the final aspect of his journey.

"A
kiss, Sir Knight, by the one who loves you best is the only catalyst for the
Recipe," the foreign accent was soft in Kieran's ear. "When the kiss
is given, you shall awaken complete and whole. I apologize that I cannot be
more precise than that. For certain, Alchemy is not an accurate science. It is
the way of men who dare to explore the realm beyond conventional
knowledge."

Kieran
heard the words at the exact moment darkness claimed him. A kiss, Sir Knight,
from the one who loves you best. There was no one who loved him best, except
for God. Mayhap God would rouse him personally, welcoming him with open arms
into Heaven. It was thoughts of Paradise that accompanied Sir Kieran Hage into
the dominion beyond the pain of his mortal existence.

Paradise
and visions of his secret.

***

The next
day dawned remarkably bright as the populace of Nahariya went about their business.
Almost no one noticed the alchemist and the innkeeper, digging a hole in the
floor of an ancient Greek temple. Once dedicated to the Wine God Bacchus, it
was now dilapidated with age.

It was
high noon above the city on a sweltering day. No one cared that two men were
out to bury their rubbish within the confines of the pagan sanctuary, a large
bundle of cast-offs that they could hardly maneuver between them. Not even the
worshippers entering the Mosque several hundred paces to the south for their noon
prayers noticed the activity. It was all quite normal.

"Did
you collect all of his possessions?" the alchemist asked over the dust and
insects.

"Everything
he left in his room. I did not want a trace of the man to linger. He's being
hunted, you know."

"I
know. I saw the knight with the piercing blue eyes earlier today, apparently
following the trail left by our English friend," the old man sighed
heavily, unused to such physical exertion. "Although I do not want to bury
the man, there is little choice if we are to hide him from his enemy. Why do
you suppose his fellow Englishman would want to kill him?"

The fat
man with the shovel huffed and sweated over the half-filled grave. It was a
moment before he answered because he could hardly breathe.

"Last
night, while collecting the English knight's property, I came across his
journal,” he said. “Naturally, I was curious and read the contents. And if what
he says is true...."

The
alchemist looked at him strangely. "If
what
is true?"

The last
shovels of earth filled the hole. Perspiring heavily, the innkeeper focused on
the alchemist. "Amazing things, Kaleef. Perhaps I will tell you some day
when there is no risk of our conversation being overheard," he sighed,
leaning on his trowel. "I have written of the discovery in my own
chronicle so that if something should ever happen to me before the truth is
known, someone will know the amazing devotion of this English knight. Someone
will read my words and pass the information to a person with as much devotion
to the Christian cause as the man we have buried."

Kaleef
watched his friend collect his digging instruments and trudge down the hill.
Glancing to the fresh grave, he seriously ponder Hut's words. A secret, had Sir
Kieran said? A secret worth subjecting himself to an alchemist's treatment in
the hope that, someday, he could awaken to relive a secret that was valuable
enough for one man to kill for and another to die for?

Kaleef
wondered; what
was
this secret? Perhaps he would never know.

He
wasn't sure he wanted to.

CHAPTER
TWO

Nahariya,
Israel

Present
Day

Beneath
the intense rays of the Middle Eastern sun, clouds of dust rose from a hillside
covered with ropes secured into grid patterns. A small army of swarthy-skinned
workers passed baskets of earth from the area of excavation to a pile that
would be sifted through at a later time. The sing-song chant to help pass the
time was as repetitious as the work, but the native laborers welcomed the
tedium; such were the perils of the archaeological dig that kept them employed.

A bright
blue tarp shielded the heart of the activity, pretending to offer some relief
from the blazing sun. Deep in protected trench, a Caucasian man with a
sunburned nose carefully swept away clods of earth from what appeared to be a
flat, well-worn surface. Around him, the workers continued to clear the earth
away and make cautious effort not to disturb him.

"Well?
What do you think? Did we hit floor?"

The man
in the hole heard the question, brushing his fine-bristled brush across the
flat surface a few more times before straightening. Glancing over his shoulder,
he caught sight of tanned, shapely legs.

"It
sure looks like it," he said. "I guess you were right."

"Of
course I was." Knees popped as the figure crouched at the edge of the
hole, her shaded face beaming beneath a broad-brimmed hat. Hazel eyes, wide and
beautiful, fixed excitedly on the man in the hole. "I told you this was an
ancient temple sight, Bud. Now I've finally proven it to you."

Dr.
Frederick "Bud" Dietrich smiled broadly at his colleague, his perfect
teeth reflecting the brilliant blue of the tarp. "So I'll kiss your feet
later. Right now, I want to get a sample of this floor for carbon testing.
Where's Dave?"

As if
hearing his name, Dr. David Peck made a hurried appearance at the edge of the
trench. In his hands, a digital camcorder was poised to begin documenting the
discovery; he'd been in the very same hole not fifteen minutes earlier when it
had become apparent they were on to something. The woman in the broad-brimmed
hat smiled into his bespectacled brown eyes.

"We've
hit floor, Dave," she said eagerly. "Didn't I tell you it was
here?"

Dave
gazed into her beautiful face, flushed with excitement and temperature.
"You were right and I'll never hear the end of it,” he didn’t want to feed
her already-big ego so he tried to sound unimpressed. “Now, move out of the way
so that I can record your auspicious find."

Smiling
confidently, the woman rose and stepped aside, allowing Dr. Peck to descend
into the trench. As Bud and David swarmed over a very small patch of
hard-packed earth, Dr. Rory Osgrove observed the activity with the aura of a
conquering Caesar. It had taken fourteen long months of sweat and labor, but
finally, she knew she had found what they had been looking for. At least, she
hoped so.

 Dr.
Peck began to record the discovery of the ancient floor, narrating a
blow-by-blow account as Bud resumed brushing and proceeded to dust away
centuries of dirt. Technically, Dr. Osgrove was on a break, as she had been
working in this precise spot for the past seven hours until Bud demanded she
take a breather. Even as her supervising archaeologist continued brushing away
the loose soil where she had left off, Rory was unable to leave and certainly
unable to rest.

 The idleness
only grew worse. Unable to stand it any longer, Rory collected a smaller, finer
brush from Bud's arsenal of instruments and descended into the trench. Finding
a comfortable position, she began to delicately brush the edges of the ancient
flooring as Bud watched her from the corner of his eye. Knowing how excited she
was, he just didn't have the heart to scold her for disregarding his order to
rest.

"Look
how hard packed this stuff is," she murmured, ignoring the dust billowing
up her nose. "Once we clear away more of the debris, the size of the
sanctuary ought to take shape."

"If
it's even a sanctuary," ever-logical Dr. Peck offered his steady wisdom to
off-set his colleague's enthusiasm. "It could be a number of things, Rory.
We've discussed this already."

Rory
didn't look up from her area of concentration. "All of the data supports
the fact that this should be an ancient Muslim mosque. All of the artifacts
we've tested simply strengthen that claim."

Dr. Peck
kept his eye to the viewfinder of the camcorder. "You're basing your
reasoning on fourteenth century manuscripts as well as regional folklore. Other
than a few pieces of pottery and polished stone, we've found nothing further to
substantiate your theory. Show me an ancient Koran beneath this flooring and I
just might believe you."

Rory
paused, the smile gone from her face as she focused on her skeptical associate.
"How do you think most archaeological sites are plotted and discovered,
Dave? Ancient manuscripts have always been a fairly reliable source of
information and I spent the better part of my post-graduate work locating this
exact site. Are you telling me that I've been leading the university and its
funds on a wild goose chase without good reason?"