The Dove (44 page)

“You are afraid to go to Heaven?”  Levi asked him incredulously.

“Exactly.  Besides, I am in love again.”  Mark told them matter-of-factly.  “I know that sounds ridiculous, but it’s true.  I know I told you that there would be nothing between myself and Sophia and I meant that, but it doesn’t change my feelings for her.  Now I’ve had to give her up to Mark Ramsay just as I had to give Merry up to Lucio and then to you.  And then I lost her to Nanna.  Now I’ve lost Sophia to myself!  Just as I had to kill myself to get rid of me once before.  I’m like a bad penny, I keep turning up.”

“Oh, that makes my head hurt, Brother.”  Simon pressed his hand to his forehead.

“Don’t be concerned.  I’m just talking.  Trying to sort it out.  I thought it would be better if I went with my grandson to clean up in New Babylon.  You know, a family sort of thing, good old sister Hubur.  A family reunion.  But even Omar has someone who loves him more than I do.  He has Luke Andrew.  Luke was ready to go AWOL from the Order for Omar.  And I know that Omar would rather have Luke with him than me.”

“Your brother will be happy to see you here with us.”  Simon told him.  “He misses you terribly.  He talks about you constantly.”

“I have charged him to be Mark’s brother now.  Luke Matthew is not my brother, Simon.  He never was.  Mark is his true brother and now he will be his brother’s keeper as it should have been from the start.  The first time I left Scotland and Luke followed me, he was the stronger one.  He made the decisions.  I looked up to him, even though I caused him to lose his home.  But the second time, I became the leader and he was the follower.  I made him dependent upon me and that was not fair to him.  Not fair at all.  He came to rely on me so heavily that he is suffering for it now.  Another mistake to my credit.  He must bring out what is within him and forget about me and my blundering lunacy.”

“You were only trying to protect him.”  Simon told him.  “It is a natural thing, especially in light of what you knew the second time around.”

“But I did not come here to be a babysitter or to have brothers and sisters and wives and daughters and sons and so on and so forth.  I came here to help the people overcome the rule of the Angry God, the half-maker.  I came here to help destroy my father.  I came here to commit patricide, Simon.”

“No, I don’t think so.  You said you came as a Lord of Wisdom.” Simon tried to zero in on something, anything besides where the one-sided conversation was going.

“So much for wisdom.”  Mark sighed.  “As I was thrown here, I relived my entire life…
all of it
.  I saw everyone and everything.  Things that I had forgotten.  Things that I did not want to remember and I saw the Temple of God open in heaven and I saw where I went wrong.  I saw what has to be done and why.  I saw everything.”  Mark Andrew fell silent again.  After a few moments he spoke.  “The great Thoth, once wrote that ‘
in the silence of material senses lies the key to the unveiling of wisdom.  He who talks does not know; he who knows does not talk
’.  Now is the time for silence. Thank you for talking with me, Brother.”

“You’re certainly welcome.”  Simon smiled, but he had no idea why.  A shudder passed through his soul.  Were they really going to face God?

Chapter Fifteen
of Sixteen

And the temple of God was opened in heaven

And there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament

The small band of angelic warriors lay on the edge of the bluff overlooking the dry river bed.  The sun was sinking in a band of purple, red and blue clouds and the light escaping under the rim of the clouds turned their faces golden.  Lucifer was frowning deeply at the abandoned ATV in the wadi below them.  A single set of foot prints in the crusty sand led off to the south for several yards and then simply stopped.  There was no sign of life or movement within the confines of the cut banks.  No other footprints of man or beast shown in the pristine surface. The vehicle’s engine hummed smoothly and the driver’s door stood open as if the occupant had left it in a great hurry.  Only another creature such as those looking on could have taken up the dark angel without leaving a sign of passage.

“Hmmm.”  The angelic chieftain remarked wisely and then dropped lightly to the base of the bank.  His warriors followed him, seeming to drip over the edge of the overhang like colorful shadows.  They left no footprints in the sand themselves as they inspected the ATV for clues as to what had happened to the driver.  Michael helped Galen down the crumbly slope and then followed the footprints left by Abaddon to where they simply ended as if he had disappeared into thin air in mid stride.

“What do you think happened?”  Galen whispered to him as the angels systematically destroyed the interior of the ATV, pulling everything, even the seats, from it, searching, perhaps, for the Urim and Thummin or clues to the whereabouts of the one called Abaddon, the Destroyer.  One of them inadvertently put the thing in gear and it rolled away slowly down the wash until it came to rest against a rather sizable boulder and began digging trenches with all four wheels.

Michael longed to commandeer the comfortable ride and travel without the horse for while, but he knew it would not be possible.  These creatures had no need for mechanized conveyances.  In fact, they had no need for horses, but rode them anyway, Michael suspicioned, simply because he and Galen were incapable of traversing the ether.  Lucifer raised one hand, pointed his index finger at the truck and the gas tank erupted in a great plume of fire and black, billowing smoke.  The shock wave almost flattened the two human members of the troop.  The angels stood watching the devastation indifferently until the glass shattered, and the tires began to send out noxious fumes.

“He is gone.”  Lucifer told them as if they could not have ascertained this on their own.

“No kidding.”  Galen mumbled as he brushed the sand from his clothes.

“I would not jest about such a thing, little one.”  The angel spoke quietly to him as he walked past and perched on a small boulder beside the footprints.  He placed one slim hand in the last track and frowned.  “I can feel nothing here.  Some power has snatched him from our grasp.”  Lucifer shook his head and stood up again.  “He has many friends in hell.”

“How do you know it was a friend?”  Michael dared the question and Galen drew a sharp breath. 

Lucifer spun around and looked into Michael’s eyes, rapidly searching from one to the other as Michael stood perfectly still.

“A good question.”  He drew back and placed one finger under his chin thoughtfully.  “I may have been a bit hasty in pronouncing it a friend.  Does he have enemies other than those I know of?”  Again he was looking in Michael’s eyes in the same peculiar, but by now familiar fashion to which the two young men had grown accustomed.

“I would have to imagine that the dark angel would have accumulated quite a store of enemies, my Lord.”  Michael raised both eyebrows.  “It would be impossible for me to hazard a guess as to who might have caught up with him here in this wasteland.  I could give you a list of his enemies I know personally.  There are probably many others.”

“Wasteland.”  Lucifer repeated one of Michael’s words as he nodded and looked about the relatively sheltered indention in the desert floor.  “Yes…  Wasteland.  But who made it so?  It was once a land of prosperity and plenty.  The people here had everything they needed for good lives.  The land cries for rain, and the water hides in the rocks.  Only the lowest forms of life can manage here.  This is truly a place of desolation.  And who would dare wander in the desolate places of the earth other than the evil spirits that inhabit such places?” 

The chieftain shaded his eyes from the sinking sun and then turned back to the east, searching the horizon. 

“The mountain of Raguel is awakening.  It was such a place as this I first saw the ancient fool who thought to challenge the one you know as Marduk Kurios.  They called him al Hafiz al Sajek.  Even into my crystal dreams he wandered in his ignorant blunderings.  I, even I, tried to warn him, but he did not listen! One of your more ingenious scribes wrote extensively of him.  Raziel has told me so, but I am wondering where this human author gained such knowledge?  One called Simon, I am told, suddenly appeared and gave out information concerning the Elder Gods and knowledge better left hidden.”

“I remember very little of those times.  Men were barbaric… much as they are today!”  Lucifer paused to laugh briefly.  “At any rate someone gave out information and I would guess it is our friend who had the loose tongue.  Most likely he was trying to find human followers for his master.  Much like your Stoker’s Renfield.”  Again Lucifer laughed and made a face like the classic pose of the vampire, Dracula.  “Massster!  Massster!  You promised immortality to meeeeeeee!  Ha!!”  Lucifer stood on the rock, looking down at them disdainfully as if it were their fault that Bram Stoker wrote Dracula.  “Silly men.  Silly women.  Silly stories and silly aspirations.  Did they not realize they were already immortal?”  The angel spun around on the rock and leaned down close to Galen’s startled face.  The son of the Golden Eagle had never gotten used to the Chieftain’s ability to move so quickly.  “Tell me, Galen, son of the Golden Eagle, was there ever a time when you feel you did not exist?”

Galen shook his head in the negative, but did not comment.

“Aha!  Why do they not trust their feelings?”  He rose up and frowned at his two students.  “If everyone knows they have always existed, then why do they question their immortality?  Can you answer this one question for me?  Either of you?” 

Neither of them answered. 

“Listen and I, even I, will tell you something, little ones, something that should have been told long ago in terms plain to all that had ears, something that should have been branded indelibly in your minds before even you were born from your mother’s wombs… though it was put in your heart by One greater than me… it should have been painted on the back of your eyelids so you see it every time you blink, every time you close your eyes in fear and tremble, every time you surrender to the indefensible posture of sleep.  You are all immortal from before ageless time, from before the heavens existed, you have existed, before ever this sun did shine upon this sorry rock, you have existed, before ever a thought of this universe was formed,
you
… have existed.”

Lucifer swirled around again on the rock, and then stepped down in order to confer with his warriors, leaving his tiny audience speechless.   The Chieftain spoke with his warriors for several moments before returning to where Michael and Galen waited for him.

“It is time for you to return to your people.”  He told them abruptly.  “Where we are going, you cannot follow.”

“But, my Lord!”  Michael was stunned.  Lucifer had dragged them everywhere.  Across deserts and mountains.  Through jungles and swamps of immeasurable breadth.  Into caves and crevices and pits of impenetrable depth. Even the Abyss had been opened for them. They had survived almost every imaginable hardship and had come through virtually unscathed.

Lucifer held up one hand.

“You will obey me, Michael.”  Lucifer’s voice was stern, but not harsh.  “We must leave this plane and go in search of the dark one.  Urim and Thummin are not here, nor were they here with him, but he has something of great interest with him, and he has been taken either by choice or by force into the ether.  I would ask that you follow your hearts and should you come across our beloved brothers, keep them safe until I return for them. You cannot follow into the ether.  Your material bodies are not suitable for such travels.  And mark this well, my friends… we will meet again.”

Michael and Galen were stunned to silence as the angels began to ascend the walls of the wadi with the same ease in which they had descended it.  The two less-capable members hurried after them, scrambling up the walls in panic as they perceived they might be left afoot in this lonely place.

When they reached the top, out of breath and terrified, they found not only their own horses, but all fifteen animals waiting for them, along with a supply of the strange, flaky food the angelic Chieftain had provided for them on previous journeys, as well as, several goatskin bags full of wine and another dozen or so full of goat’s milk.  A sack contained roasted locust and a small crockery jar of honey.

“A veritable feast.”  Galen sounded disgusted as he rummaged through the supplies in the horses’ packs, and then shaded his eyes against the last rays of the setting sun.  Michael seemed to be watching something in the distance, but Galen saw nothing on the horizon.   “Well, I guess that’s it.”

“I guess so.”  Michael frowned and picked up two of the bags, hefting them across the rump of his horse.

“Where to?”  Galen asked as he climbed onto his horse with the other bags slung over his shoulder.

“Do you know where the Grand Master was headed?”  Michael swung onto the saddle and turned the horse toward the north.

“I would assume they will make an assault on New Babylon.”  Galen told him.

“I believe I heard something about Egypt.”  Michael frowned.  He was frustrated that they had learned nothing of the plans of the Templars or the other armies.  “I wonder which mountain Lucifer was speaking of when he said the mountain of Raguel has awakened?”

“I don’t know.  Sounds like another angelic name to me, but yes.  Egypt was mentioned.”  Galen nodded.  “I heard that as well.  Perhaps my father will return to Egypt.”