All That Is Fallen Read online

  “Hear me, Master and Father,” began the invocation, speaking in old Gaelic rather than English. “Creator of the Universe, bless this effort of Thy humble servant, John, Prince of the Grave, King of Terrors, have mercy upon the heads of Thy people in their time of need. Put forth Thine Holy Hand and quicken this liquor for it rejoices the Soul, it renews virtue, it cleanseth the soul, it strengthens youth and removes old age, for it suffers not the blood to be putrified, nor choler to be found, nor melancholiness to be abundant, yea rather it multiplies the blood beyond measure and restores and renews all corporeal members efficacioiusly and preserves them from hurt, and does most perfectly heal all infirmities, hot as well as cold, dry as well as moist, before all other medicines of Physicians, and to conclude it expels all evil humors and brings in those that are good, love, honor, security, boldness and victory in battle to those that possess it and in this is the greatest secret of nature accomplished which is, a secret not to be valued at any price a most precious and incomparable treasure which god grant to be hidden in their minds that possess it lest it be made known to the foolish and the ignorant. Let every man living say: Finis!” He announced the final sentence in English.

  Several of the soldiers and Luke Andrew said the word.

  “Every man!” Mark Andrew glared at the soldier who had threatened to leave earlier.

  “Fuck that shit!” The man looked about wide-eyed. “I’m not going to sell my soul to the devil!”

  Colonel McGuffy leapt to his feet and came up with a shining, chrome-plated pistol. He pressed the man against the cold wall and put the muzzle of the pistol against his temple.

  “Say it, damn you! I’m sick of your mouth, Spencer! I’m still in command of this pathetic outfit and you will do as I say!”

  The man was flabbergasted, but he squeaked out the word ‘Finis!’ and the Colonel let go of him.

  McGuffy turned about and smiled at Mark Andrew. “I hope that was good enough.”

  Mark shrugged and then helped the sergeant sit up.

  “How do you feel, sir?” He asked the soldier, who sat staring at his bandaged hand in wonder. He held up his hands and another soldier edged forward on his hands and knees.

  “Great merciful Father!” The soldier breathed as he began to peel off the nasty bandages on the Sergeant’s injured hand. When the last of the cloth fell away, the hand was revealed whole and clean. Five fingers where before there had only been two and three mangled stumps, swollen and grotesque.

  “It worked!” The soldier shouted and his voice echoed in the concrete room. The horses whinnied nervously over their heads as the soldiers crowded about to inspect the hand. A moment later, they were awestruck as the bandages were removed from the sergeant’s head. He not only had three new fingers, he had a brand new eye to replace the one he had lost on the beach at Dover! The sergeant blinked and rubbed his new eye with his healed hand before finding Mark Andrew standing behind the other soldiers. He pushed them aside and fell on his face at Mark’s feet, weeping uncontrollably.

  Luke got to his feet quickly and helped the man up.

  “Who’s next?” Mark smiled at them.

  “Take Mario!” Someone suggested. “He’s shaking with fever.”

  Mario was pushed forward and soon they were witnessing a second miraculous healing.

  When the men were all healed of even the most hideous wounds, even the vulgar-tongued doubter whose name, ironically enough, was Thomas Spencer, the Fox soldiers sat about the fire, shocked, examining themselves and each other again and again.

  “Father!” Colonel McGuffy spoke at long last. “Tell us who you are, Master.”

  Luke Andrew retreated into one corner of the storeroom, unsure of what he should or should not do. He was undecided concerning the wisdom of what his father had done. There was barely a drop of the elixir left.

  Mark Andrew reached up and deliberately removed the tight knit cap covering his long hair. The dark locks fell upon his shoulders and the silver ornaments tinkled on the white braid. His blue eyes glowed with a look that Luke had never witnessed in his father’s face. The Colonel’s men crowded around to look at him in wonder. One of them reached a trembling hand out slowly and Mark allowed him to touch his hair. “The Prophet!” Someone gasped the words and the soldiers fell back. One of them got on his knees and placed his forehead on the concrete. “Praise Allah and His Prophet, Omar!” Another voice called out.

  “Do you still profess no belief in the Creator, James?” Mark asked him in a low voice.

  “I will believe anything you tell me to believe, Master.” The Colonel blinked at him in the firelight. “For surely, if there is a God in heaven, He has sent you to us. Are you truly the Prophet? Have we all died, then?”

  “I am no Prophet, Brothers.” Mark Andrew addressed all of them. “I am not the Prophet whom you believe lives in New Babylon. Nor is he the person you believe him to be. Let me tell you a story, my Children.”

  Luke watched in fascination as his father sat cross-legged in front of the fire as these formerly desperate men, who had been full of fear, desperation and hatred, gathered in front of him, reacting in exactly the manner in which he addressed them… as children. Never in all his life or association with his father had he heard, or expected to hear, words such as this spoken from Mark Andrew Ramsay’s lips. His father looked and sounded both very old and very young

  “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Mark Andrew began to quote from the Book of John and the men listened to him as they had never listened to anything before. “Tomorrow morning the sun will rise on a new day, my children.”

  Chapter Eight of Twenty-Two

  Yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow

  Mark Andrew’s prophecy about the sunrise had been correct and the new day dawned as expected, but the world had changed and the ensuing turmoil was incomprehensible. The people retreated into something that could only be compared a new version of the Dark Ages. The skies were swept clean of the pollution caused by the nuclear devastation, but the death toll continued to rise for years as pestilence followed famine followed local disputes. Warlords rose to power and succumbed to oblivion just as quickly. Petty warfare continued to be conducted with everything from weapons leftover from the war, to sticks and stones, depending on where one happened to be. Twenty years passed in the blink of the Proverbial eye and Europe settled into a strange sprinkling of city-states, connected by the remnants of the superhighways now used only by pedestrian traffic and horse-drawn conveyances of various designs. The best way to travel was horseback and horses became valued property, even more valuable than hearth and home. News traveled slowly and no one knew what was going on across the seas. The ships would not run without fuel and what few sailing vessels in existence were confiscated by whoever who could take them and keep them. But all was not as dark as one might expect.

  The population had dropped to an incredible low and this helped ease the strain on the survivors. Life took on new priorities as former business executives and computer nerds learned to be farmers and craftsmen. Mark’s performance and short sojourn with Colonel McGuffy had started a chain reaction causing an unprecedented number of defections amongst the Fox military units cut off from the influence of New Babylon. Before he left McGuffy in the south of England to return to the underworld, he had built an entire following who proclaimed him as the True Messenger of Light. They called him John, the Beloved Teacher, after the beloved disciple of Jesus Christ because he always started his teachings with the first verses of John. They also recognized him as the divine brother of the King of England.

  By the time Luke Matthew had returned to London, he had become much more in his absence than ever he had been in his former short reign. Now he was the immortal Paul Luke Matthew Armenius Ramsay, Divine King and descendent of the line of Arthur Pendragon. The p
eople, as well as, the new Royal Court, followed him without question as he rallied the Kingdom and began to restore the semblance of civilization to the British Isles, leaping ahead of the confusion still reigning on the continent. Soon, King Ramsay’s court had become the center of the western world with emissaries and representatives of all the emerging republics, kingdoms and states coming to him for counsel, help and support. And King Ramsay gave freely to all of them without reserve, with only the one condition that would swear fealty in support of Britain in its endeavors against the powers in Persia Major.

  Louis Champlain’s crowning had been delayed for twenty years, but was now rescheduled to occur within the next few months. Rome had gathered itself from the ashes and Italy had re-emerged as a leading nation in a few short years. Much of Europe had escaped the actually physical devastation of the war and with a bit of magickal help of which they were mostly unaware, the effects of the nuclear winter and the aftermath were lessened to a great extent as the people regained their faith in God. Louis would be expected to and had sworn to unite the scattered populations of the southern continental regions under one rule centered in the New Frankish Kingdom located in the South of France with strong ties to the Bavarian nations, England and Ireland. A few of the oil producing companies located in the North Sea had begun to operate again and the government was able to slowly, but surely restore power in some of the larger settlements. The ownership and usage of motorized vehicles was limited to government operations only. Luke Matthew had no intention of restoring the world to the edge of destruction again. He advocated farm and family and a slower pace of life as his country continued to heal and grow under the fresh new skies created by supernatural means after the holocaust.

  But Mark Andrew brought disturbing news from the east. A great blackness existed beyond the borders of New Persia. No one was allowed in or out of the borders, which were patrolled day and night by fully armed soldiers, wielding weapons that left no doubt as to who was in control of that part of the world. Mark Andrew and those he carried with him on his frequent forays, traveled unmolested under his protection. The Emperor still reigned in New Babylon, but there was little left of the civilian populace. They were plunged into the depths of slavery and oppression, servility without hope, starving and living in extreme poverty while the government continued to demand work from them for very little pay.

  Jozsef Daniel was there as well and the Queen Mother, whom Mark Andrew suspected was much more than the re-animated corpse of Ruth Kadif. Nicole was also living at the palace. As far as Mark could determine, Bari Kadif was bent upon rebuilding his empire with the sole purpose of reclaiming the world. Beyond New Persia where the war had started was nothing but wasteland, devastation and death. Malignant creatures roamed the mountains and steppes of central Asia and Mongolia. Creatures that Mark knew could have only come from Jozsef Daniel’s demented imagination.

  The same thing had happened in North and South America. The lands were devoid of people for the most part. Only a few heavily fortified cities existed in the North and, in the south, the land had reverted to jungle where the climate permitted and only the Indians indigenous to the regions before civilization had taken them over, continued to live as they had thousands of years earlier. The mountains, plateaus and plains below the equatorial regions were virtually devoid of human life. Man had devolved on both continents, killed each other and then the few survivors had succumbed to the elements in short order. The remnants of what was left posed no threat to the rest of the world and were simply trying to survive in a very hostile environment as Jozsef Daniel introduced more and more bizarre monstrosities to molest them.

  Africa was no better off. Here again, Mark had found the signs of Jozsef’s passing. The tribes deep within the Congo hung on, but the great populations and cities of the North were being slowly devoured by the Sahara Desert. Even Cairo was decimated to the brink of annihilation. People lived in caves without the least hope of ever returning to the cities now half-buried by the inexorable sands. The green belt along the Nile was left for the hippos and crocodiles as the waters, no longer controlled by the government dams, took up the age old pattern of flooding and receding as the seasonal rains to the south demanded. Again, Africa posed no threat to either New Persia or Europe. The world had been reduced to two distinctly different civilizations: Those Who Stood with Persia and Those Who Stood Against Persia. The entire remaining populations of the war-torn Middle East had migrated north after the war. The Israelis had packed up their meager belongs and traveled at great peril across the Mediterranean Sea to France. The Muslims had gone in the opposite direction, hoping for refuge in the Prophet’s lands north of the Red Sea. Jozsef and Bari had welcomed them with open arms and then quickly assimilated them into the Kingdom. It was not exactly what they had expected, but true to form, they refused to ally themselves with the West, preferring to live in misery under the Emperor who allowed them to worship Allah, but required them to pay homage to his ‘father’ as the True Prophet. Within twenty years, Mohammed had been replaced by Omar. A trend that had started with Omar’s New Order of the Temple was perpetuated under the illusion that Jozsef Daniel was Omar Kadif.

  Mark Andrew had returned to Lothian after passing through Germany to check on Eduord de Goth’s status at Wewelsburg. De Goth had done quite well. He had brought the surviving members of his Order to the Castle at the beginning of the war and was now in charge of a great parcel of land surrounding the castle. Most of the Order of the Red Cross of Gold could still be found either in Lothian or the two islands in the Irish Sea. Luke Matthew had stepped down as Knight of the Orient and Thaddeus Champlain had stepped up to fill that role. The new Knight of the Orient had taken Nicholas Sinclair-Ramsay as his apprentice. In the absence of Galen Zachary, Benjamin d’Ornan would take on the Knighthood of the Golden Key, drafting his younger brother Dan, as his apprentice. Time had shown that every one of Simon’s sons were aging. Very, very slowly, but aging, none-the-less. Reuben, the eldest, now appeared to be about forty and the rest of them in their mid to late thirties. Joey, on the other hand, looked to be slightly older than her husband and much to Simon’s grief, Lydia was now somewhere close to forty-five, though he loved her no less than ever. Simeon’s wife, Constance, had taken ill as soon as they had returned to the Isle of Ramsay from Germany after the war and had died of a mysterious fever, leaving Simeon devastated. He lived with his daughter, Greta, and her brother, Gabriel, on St. Patrick’s Island.

  Il Dolce Mio had given up his pursuit of Simeon’s daughter at the request of his father and she had refused Vanni’s offer of marriage. The elven King had transformed part of the barn into a sort of shrine for his ‘holy relic’. Mark Andrew had tried time and again to find out what his diminutive copy was up to. The rear of the barn was now a fantastical world straight out of the elven King’s mind. It vaguely resembled the Seventh Gate and a faery grotto combined. The ‘relic’, as Il Dolce Mio referred to the filigreed golden cask, sat on an altar made of an immense section of oak, entwined about with ivies, flowering vines and latticework made of colorful crystal strands. Two elven soldiers stood on duty on either side of the altar at all times and no one, not even Mark Andrew, was allowed to approach the cask. Mark Andrew had finally given up questioning the elf King about the object or why he had brought it to Scotland, but since they had returned here after the war, the elves could be found every night in the barn, playing their music and dancing around their strange blue fires. Sometimes the King was with them and sometimes his second, the one call Sim, would be found there in lively play. It had become one of the more pleasant pastimes enjoyed by the members of the Order and the residents of the estate to go down two or three times a week to join in the nightly celebrations where they were always welcome to sing, dance and drink, but were never allowed to enter the grotto.

  The night that Il Dolce Mio had arrived had been just prior to the first nuclear attack launched from China. Mark remembered it quite well. They had all gone rus
hing down to the barn when Luke Andrew had summoned them. The King and Semiramis had been there with the ‘holy relic’, waiting for them. Paddy and his cousins had been there as well. Whatever Luke Andrew had seen or learned before he’d come to the house seeking them in such a panicked state, he had kept to himself. Mark had every suspicion that Luke Andrew knew what was in the box, but was not telling. Mark Andrew somehow did not want to know. Semiramis had only confided that it was something that they might find useful when they finally confronted the ancient evil and bade them allow it to remain in the barn under the keeping of the ‘Little King’, assuring him that she would assist him in protecting it until the time it would be needed. Slowly, but surely, the elves had transformed the barn into something more suitable to their constant attendance. There were even dryads living in the hayloft now. The little creatures would bombard anyone who came too near the grotto entrance with straw, oats and anything else they could get their tiny hands on. Mark had even gotten an old shoe up the side of his head when he had ventured too close to the colorful, flower-laden bower that concealed the entrance to the grotto.

  Vanni and Selwig had been summoned home from the castle in Germany just before the first missiles had struck India. After their sojourn in the underworld with the rest of the Order they had taken up residence in Luke Matthew’s old home with Lucio and Catharine de Goth who had been married for the better part of fifteen years. Edgard d’Brouchart divided his time between Lothian and St. Patrick’s where he still presided over the affairs of the Red Cross of God. The Grand Master still longed to return to southern Italy, but the conditions were not right as yet. Izzy had taken his wife, Gloriana, home when her mother had died and they, too, had opted to remain at St. Patrick’s with Simeon and Reuben. Vanni naturally gravitated down to the barn almost every night and Selwig went with him. They were enjoying the best of both of their beloved worlds. Greta had married one of the Templar’s sons, Remy Touchet, d’Brouchart’s former valet, on St. Ramsay’s Island, breaking both the hearts of Vanni and Il Dolce Mio, but when she came to visit, they always took her to the barn and played and sang for her all the same and even allowed her husband to come along. The Isle of Ramsay had been renamed, much to Mark’s chagrin, after the monks had decided to canonize Mark Ramsay for his ‘missionary’ work after the war. St. Ramsay! He would never get used to that title! And it was so very incongruous when listed with his other titles. The Chevalier du Morte, Mark Andrew Ramsay, Prince of the Grave, King of Terrors, Saint…