The Perfect Sun Read online

  “It doesn’t matter what you think, Simon, we are making progress, and I happen to know we have been on the road for just over a week. We should be coming into the Jordan Valley. The Dead Sea should be close at hand now. The landscape is simply confusing us because of the damage and changes caused by the flood. You’ll see. Now get a party together. Leave off Izzy and Philip. Bring Dan, Barry and that Stewart fellow,” Edgard gave the orders and then started off toward his own tent. “I’ll be with you shortly.”

  Simon watched his father go and shook his head slowly. Edgard still called Christopher Stewart ‘that Stewart fellow’. He’d never forgiven him for taking Montague’s mystery and standing between Lucio and sure death when the Italian had taken the Seneschal’s head. The Healer picked up his pace and hurried off to find the requested people for the search party. He didn’t know if he really believed Konrad’s idea about the curse of Yahweh, but he knew in his heart things were not quite right.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  “Grandfather?” Apolonio pushed Konrad over and the Knight sprawled onto his back as if dead. He lifted Konrad’s head and poured a bit of water on his lips. The Knight coughed, sputtered and then grabbed the canteen, drinking more of the precious liquid before Apolonio could take it from him.

  “Save it. You must save it,” he gasped and then sat down heavily in the dirt beside the downed Knight and the dead horse, still pinning him to the desert floor. “This is my fault entirely, Grandfather. I am sorry to have caused this. Does it hurt much?”

  Konrad pushed himself up on his elbows and looked at the mess he was in. His left leg was under the horse up past his knee. He put his other foot against the saddle and pushed. The slight movement caused him to fall back again, groaning in pain.

  “I thought it was numb,” he said when the pain subsided.

  “Apparently not and that’s good,” Apolonio inspected the leg as best he could and tried to feel under the horse’s body for broken bones. The pain he caused stopped further investigation.

  “That’s easy for you to say,” the Knight said again and laughed slightly when the pain eased.

  “Well, it just means that you will have fewer problems when we get this off of you. Less nerve damage,” Apolonio smiled.

  “As long as it’s still attached to my body, I’m fine.” Konrad pushed himself up again and looked in both directions. The sun was well above the horizon and they were in for a long, hot day. The other horse had disappeared completely and with him, hope for immediate relief had disappeared just as completely.

  “I should set off before it gets much hotter.” Apolonio squinted into the sunrise. “I can walk to the southeast, and I should intersect the trail sooner or later and then, of course, they will probably send back a search party….”

  “No!” Konrad caught his arm and pulled him close. “You can’t leave. There are things… creatures. The flood didn’t kill everything, you know. We’ll have a better chance if we stay here and conserve our strength and our water.”

  “But what if they don’t come this way? If I go in that direction while I still have the strength, our chances of being found will double,” Apolonio argued.

  “How on earth do you figure that?” Konrad frowned and rubbed his leg as far as he could reach.

  “Well, two tracks. They could go back to where we left the trail and follow our double trail here, or they could intersect with my tracks and follow it back here more rapidly or they might even send out two search parties and they could…” his words died in his throat as an eerie warbling sound filled the morning air, grew very loud and then faded away. Apolonio crouched and turned, looking in all directions as quickly as he could, trying to locate the origin of the sound. He could see nothing but a pebble strewn desert in all directions. There were rocky outcroppings to the northwest and a hazy line of mountains to the south east.

  “You were saying?” Konrad whispered when their eyes met.

  “I was saying let us try to get your leg from under this cursed beast!” Apolonio told him and they began again, desperately pushing on the horse’s spine.

  Within an hour, they were drenched in sweat with the effort, Konrad was breathing very shallowly from the excessive pain they had inflicted on his injured leg and the horse lay exactly where it had fallen. Konrad pulled his sword from the scabbard on the saddle and handed it to Apolonio.

  “The blade is very sharp. I keep it honed. Luke Matthew showed me,” Konrad told his grandson as he presented the hilt of his father’s sword to him. Apolonio took the sword and admired again the twisted black dragon and ruby red eyes. He had rarely been allowed to touch the venerated sword of his grandfather, but his face clouded over when he realized what his grandfather had not said.

  “I cannot do it, Father,” Apolonio’s eyes widened and he scooted back with the sword.

  “Of course you can.” Konrad frowned. “I can’t do it. I’m at the wrong angle.”

  “Surely we are not so desperate, yet.” Apolonio’s face drained of color. “Santa Maria! I can’t do it!”

  He fell back again as the same sound split the air, louder than ever. It seemed to emanate from everywhere at once. The ground, the sky, the rocks.

  “Well, you’d damn well better get off your ass and do it, you little fuck!” Konrad lost his temper. “I don’t think that’s a dinner invitation, more likely a dinner bell.”

  Apolonio struggled to his feet and drew a ragged breath. He raised the sword over his head and prepared to bring it down on his father’s leg.

  “Wait!!” Konrad shouted and Apolonio staggered backwards. “What the hell are you doing?!”

  “Cutting off your leg!! What do you think?!” Apolonio shrieked at him and dropped the blade on the ground.

  “Great God in Heaven! Cut the horse, my son! The horse! Cut it off my leg, please.” Konrad fell back on the ground laughing hysterically.

  Apolonio fell to his knees and dropped his head a few moments to collect his wits and then began the grisly task of cutting the horse in half.

  “And be careful!” Konrad rose up on his elbows to watch the messy process. “I’m in enough trouble here.”

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  The ragged band of Fox Soldiers stood waiting skittishly in the shade of the flapping canopy they had erected against the merciless sun. It was winter, but the seasons were skewed. Nothing had returned to normal since the floods and their hurried escape from New Babylon. They wore everything they owned on their backs and they held their automatic rifles ready to take out whatever this new threat might be.

  Lucifer waved to them with his left hand and pulled the canvas bag gingerly from his sore shoulder.

  “Greetings, fine warriors!” Lucifer called to them when they did not respond to his waves and Ernst grabbed his arm.

  “Hold on, Luke,” he said in a low voice. “You’d best let me handle this. They don’t look very friendly.”

  “Advance and be recognized!” One of the soldiers shouted to them and raised his rifle a bit.

  Lucifer jerked his arm from the General’s grip, but allowed him to go in first.

  “General Ernst Schweikert, Central Command Fox, Babylon!” Ernst answered the challenge and held up both hands, allowing his own rifle to hang from the straps.

  “General Schweikert?” The soldiers looked at each other nervously and the name was said several times.

  “Come on in, sir!” The soldier called. “We will need proof of your identity.”

  “I have my papers, Corporal.” Ernst looked back at Lucifer and smiled. “Follow my lead, friend. Just keep cool.”

  “Cool, yes.” Lucifer smiled and raised his own arms in the air. “A very strange greeting ritual.”

  “Whatever,” Ernst mumbled and they walked into the camp.

  After a tricky exchange of identification cards, orders and other official papers that now meant nothing, they settled down around the fire to share the men’s meal with them. They drank and ate and t
alked about nothing in particular until the Corporal asked Ernst how long before they could return to the city. Ernst had no idea what had transpired in the city. He had no idea where Omar, the Prophet, had gone or how he had found himself running for his life along a deserted highway. The last thing he remembered was being in a boat off of the coast of Ireland with Omar Kadif and his wife, Ruth.

  “It might be some time before we can get the situation under control,” he told them vaguely. “Where did you say you were heading?”

  “We thought to rendezvous with some of the companies that left the city ahead of us, but we are beginning to think they went north instead of south,” the corporal explained and the others nodded their agreement.

  “Well, we should try to connect with Colonel Bardsley’s battalion. Is he still in Jordan?”

  “Jordan?” The Corporal frowned and the others fell quiet.

  “We have no battalions in Jordan, sir,” another of the soldiers answered quickly. “We don’t even know if Jordan exists anymore.”

  “Yes, of course, but we have to make some sort of plan.” Ernst nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose you’re right. Well, perhaps we should head north when the sun goes down. What mode of transportation do you have?” He looked around and saw nothing, but empty rocks and the flat landscape of formerly rich farmland.

  The corporal laughed and held up one foot.

  “Boots, sir. That’s how we got here. Same as you.” He laughed sarcastically. “We ran out of gas before we got out of sight of the city. There weren’t many supplies left. By the time we decided to run, the good stuff was taken.”

  “Then you have no command structure? No contact with HQ?” Ernst’s frown deepened.

  “Are you kidding?!” One of the men burst out and then fell quiet. “No disrespect intended, sir,” he said after a moment.

  “Then it would seem we are all in the same boat, sir,” the Corporal added. “We have no orders, no communications network, no transportation. No mission.”

  “We are not all in the same boat as you put it, young one,” Lucifer spoke up for the first time. His strange accent and inflection caused them all to gawk at him. “I have a mission, which is quite clear from the Most High Command.”

  “Oh, really?” The Corporal eyed the sergeant’s bars on Lucifer’s collar. “What mission is that, Sarge, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  Lucifer stood up and held out both arms. He looked up at the sky and a beautiful smile spread across his face.

  “Lo, I bring glad tidings of great news! A son will be born to you and He will be a sign unto you from the Most High. And He will be called Michael Emmanuel, the Deliverer, the Savior. You will find him lying in a manger, and He will bring a sword to cast down the Ancient One.”

  The soldiers sat staring at Lucifer with mouths agape.

  “He’s been affected by the sun,” Ernst shrugged and broke the silence. “It’s all right, Sergeant Ramsay. They already know that story.”

  “They do?” Lucifer looked very disappointed and dropped his arms to his side.

  “Of course we do, Sarge,” the Corporal said and leaned toward the General. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Say, General, sir. Is Sergeant Ramsay a guy or a girl?”

  “He says he’s a man,” the General answered in like tones. “But it’s hard to tell, isn’t it?”

  “Hmmm.” The Corporal nodded and then smiled at Lucifer. “Say, Sarge, we have some time before we bed down. Would you care for a shower? Bennett’s rigged one back there in the rocks.”

  Lucifer frowned and glanced toward the rocks.

  “A shower? You mean rain?” He asked. “I’m afraid I can’t do those anymore. At least, not yet.”

  “Oh, I see.” The Corporal sighed and circled one finger around his temple in the universal sign for ‘wacko’. “Well, we’d best try to get some rest before nightfall. It’ll be too hot to sleep soon. General? We have a few bedrolls. We can share.”

  Schweikert glanced at Lucifer, and then at the soldiers who were staring at him. The ‘Sarge’ seemed oblivious to them as he frowned at the water in the bottle and then made a terrible face.

  “What is wrong with you?” Ernst stood up abruptly.

  “I don’t know,” Lucifer looked up at him. “I think I have the same disorder Michael and Galen had.”

  “Oh? And what disease was that?”

  “The running off disease.” Lucifer frowned again and clutched his stomach.

  “Oh! Diarrhea. Yes, well. Probably the water.” Schweikert helped his companion to his feet. “Corporal, do we have any facilities here?”

  “Are you kidding, sir?” The Corporal shook his head. “We just go in the rocks like always.”

  “Oh, well, then, Sergeant, just go in the rocks like always,” Schweikert said and pushed him toward the nearest likely cluster.

  “Wait. Here you go!” The Corporal tossed a roll of toilet paper toward him. “Be my guest, Sarge.”

  Lucifer caught the paper out of the air as a dawning realization took hold of him and he began to sweat. Another terrible thing he had to suffer in his present form. Humans were certainly messy creatures. Within the space of a few moments, the Heavenly Messenger had three lessons in human anatomy he could have done without for eons. He lost a great deal of weight and lot more dignity before it was all over, but he gained an enormous measure of humility.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  A rather colorful insect of sizable proportions hit the clear bubble in front of Galen and left a florescent smear of rainbow hues.

  “Ick!” Galen rolled up his nose and wiped his own face as if the thing had hit him personally.

  “Watch…” Michael leaned over his shoulder and pointed toward the horizon.

  Galen waited and then jumped when a dark shield dropped down over the clear cover, leaving them in complete darkness for a matter of seconds, before sliding back up again. The dead bug’s remains were gone and the view was crystal clear.

  “Whoa!” Galen smiled and looked up at Michael. “So we’re inside its eye?”

  “Yeah, neat, huh?” Michael sat down on the soft ‘floor’ beside him. “I thought you’d like to see this. I think it is more like his cornea to be more accurate.”

  “I’m amazed,” Galen admitted and then frowned. “How’d you find this?”

  “Well, I knew they had to see where we were going somehow. I conducted an intensive investigation and used every available means to ascertain the wherewithal of the navigational apparatus necessary to pilot this ambidextroid symbiote. After a thorough examination of possible theorems, hypotheses and extrapolations, I came to the obvious conclusion,” Michael told him importantly.

  “Oh really?” Galen raised one eyebrow. “And what were those conclusions, Holmes?”

  “Elementary, my dear Watson…” Michael pretended to be smoking a pipe. He removed the invisible pipe and blew imaginary smoke in the air. “I followed Ashmodel.”

  Galen popped Michael’s shoulder and he dropped his ‘pipe’.

  “So what are we looking for?” Galen leaned forward and looked at the rapidly flowing landscape below them. The sight of the ground not more than a dozen yards below them, made him dizzy and he drew back quickly.

  “Exactly what we needed,” Michael laughed at him. “More excitement.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “We’re looking for General Schweikert,” Michael answered on a more solemn note.

  “Him again? Isn’t that how we got stranded before?” Galen snorted derisively.

  “Well, I doubt Papa will leave us here,” Michael assured him and squinted at the landscape. “This looks like a terrible place to be stranded with dragons flying around… and worse.”

  “Yeah!” Galen agreed and leaned forward again, forgetting his motion sickness. “I thought she was going to catch us for sure.” He pointed at the huge curving ripple marks on the deceptively smooth landscape. “Didn’t Ashmodel say he saw something in the desert? Something t
hat distracted the dragon? He said it was down in the wasteland. I’ve never seen a more wasted wasteland. I wonder what happened to it…” he stopped and grabbed Michael’s arm as Leviathan dipped and banked. They came around and sped back the way they had come, even closer to the ground than before. Both men were hugging each other tightly and shrieking as they came to a screeching halt. The landing was a bit bumpier than they had expected.

  “We’d better get out of here.” Michael recovered his composure and dragged Galen after him. They tumbled into a coiling tunnel that resembled gray flex-pipe of an enormous scale. At the next intersection they ran directly into Mark Andrew and Ashmodel apparently coming down from the other eye port.

  “What is it?” Michael asked, beating his uncle to the punch.

  “We’re going outside,” Mark told him shortly and looked them over. “Good, you have your weapons. Keep your swords handy, laddies.”

  They followed the Knight of Death out of the tunnel into a smaller, smoother passage and quickly found themselves dumped into the bright light of day. They stood looking about in confusion.

  “Ears,” Ashmodel supplied the answer to the question they did not ask.

  Mark Andrew walked quickly across the debris field and stopped beside an anomalous rock the size of an easy chair. The rock was completely out of place. Nothing bigger than a match stick remained on the desert floor. The flood waters had crushed everything into a homogenous pulp and then sculpted it into long, curving swaths resembling barchans made of debris or rubble instead of sand. Millions upon millions of sea creatures and land creatures had perished in the deluge. Galen stooped to pick up a handful of the stuff and let it sift through his fingers in wonder. A microscope and a hundred years of research time would have been necessary to identify everything in a cubic inch of the finely ground morass.

  Michael called him over to the solitary stone where Mark Andrew and Ashmodel were kneeling on the rubble, scratching at the earth near the base of the rock.