The Perfect Sun Read online

  “Help me with this, Cousin,” Michael pushed against the rock.

  It took all four of them, plus Selwig, to move the rock. When the boulder finally crunched away from where it had rested and rolled over on its side, they were appalled to see two large, bloody feet exposed to the midday sun. It was bizarre, hideous and awesome. The feet were covered with red and black scales and the toenails were black claws. Selwig screeched and climbed up on the rock to get away from the grisly sight.

  “What happened?” Michael asked as he squatted beside the feet and pulled one of them from the soil by one of its clawed toes.

  “Don’t do that, Michael!” Galen covered his mouth with his hand. “You don’t know what that is… was. What was it, Uncle Mark? Something died horribly here.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Mark rose up and frowned at the horizon in all directions. “I’d say it was an act of desperation. You say Inanna followed you here and then you didn’t see her anymore?”

  “It was some time just after we sighted the creature that she parted ways with us, yes,” the angel confirmed. “I did not see where she went. I was simply glad to be rid of her. I thought she might give us a problem.”

  “I’m sure she would have,” Mark muttered and put one hand on his forehead. He might have been too late in his good intentions. He had promised Abaddon he would talk to Inanna for him, but this did not bode well for the Scorpion Lord. She had either eaten him here in the desert, snapping off his feet under the rock, or he had been trapped here for some reason and had been forced to amputate his own feet. Either way, it was an awful thought and did not predict a happy ending.

  “Whose feet?” Selwig asked from the top of the boulder. “I think I may have seen them before.”

  “I’m not sure,” Mark Andrew did not wish to alarm the healer any further. The Tuathan was deathly afraid of the dark angel and had never been convinced that he had been working with Mark Andrew.

  Michael took Galen aside and whispered in his ear while the Tuathan stared at the horrid sight.

  “Bury them,” Mark told Michael and started back for the ship. Selwig leapt from the rock onto Ashmodel’s shoulders when the angel stopped for him. They had become fast friends, though Mark doubted Selwig understood what angels were and how dangerous they were and what terrible friends they made in general.

  A few minutes later, Leviathan glided across the desert floor as if it were a paved runaway and then lifted smoothly into the hot desert air.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  Lucio slid from the back of his horse and stood staring at the curving magnificence of the white palace. Nicole had insisted they follow the beach to the cliff where the trail wound up the face to the Knocker called Bart’s cave. It was the fastest and safest way into the abyss according to her. Lucio had never intentionally set out to travel to the abyss. All of his ventures there had been entirely accidental and so he had taken her word for it. She had, after all, spent a number of years living on this very cliff with Omar and his father.

  Omar and his father. Lucio’s dark eyes widened and then nodded. Lemarik. Of course. What safer place than the underworld for his little family. He climbed back on his horse and turned back to face Nicole.

  “What do you think?” He asked her. “Do we stop and pay our respects to your brother? Or do we go on?”

  “I don’t think we’ll have the chance to pass him by.” Nicole nodded toward the base of the trail that led up the cliff.

  Lemarik swayed toward them across the sand. His purple robe fluttered out behind him and the stiff sea breeze split his long beard, sweeping it back on either shoulder.

  “Ho, friend of Adar! Daughter of Adar!” He smiled as he drew near. “This is a most pleasant surprise! I have missed you!”

  “Hello yourself, son of Adar,” Nicole returned the greeting, but sat in the saddle and did not dismount.

  Gregory, Nicholas and Lucio climbed down to greet the Djinni with warm hugs. It was good to see a familiar face, even if it was a bit foreign.

  “You have come seeking my beautiful son, Omar?” He asked them. His large eyes glittered and it was impossible to tell if he was truly pleased to see them. “You have heard his calls?”

  At the mention of Omar, Nicole slid from the horse and confronted him.

  “Omar is here?” She asked and he nodded.

  “You did not know?” He countered with a question of his own.

  “Of course not,” Nicole answered and frowned at Lucio. “How did he get here? Is Luke Andrew here? Is my father here? Have you seen Mark Andrew… the younger version, I mean.”

  “Ahhhh, ooohhhh!” Lemarik looked at all of them with great suspicion. “You have lost the human son of Adar? How can this be?”

  “It’s a long story,” Lucio spoke up. “He was in Scotland and something happened. We’re not sure what it was. Both he and Sophia are missing and we have reason to suspect they are in the abyss.”

  “Ohhhhh, that is terrible indeed.” Lemarik moved his head back and forth in an unnatural manner. “I have heard terrible rumors from the deep. Much evil has passed through the gates. My son has suffered a terrible event and his heart is not yet mended. He calls for his mother and…” the Djinni’s voice trailed off.

  “And what? What does he know? Has he seen my father?” Nicole prompted him.

  Lemarik took her by the shoulders and looked deep in her eyes.

  “You have changed, my sister. Perhaps you can help him. He calls for you. He is living in the past and his mind is not… how would you say it? Rooted in the present? I would be in your debt if you would visit him. It would possibly help him transcend the darkness which has taken him.”

  “Omar? Omar is calling for me?” Nicole’s face showed total disbelief.

  “Yes. He has something on his mind, but he will not speak to me of it. Would you…?”

  “I’d be delighted.” Nicole smiled. “We can get our bearings, and I would like to see Armand de Bleu before we go. Have you heard from the King lately? How is the little devil?”

  “Ohhh, yes!” Lemarik took her arm and escorted her toward the path. “He is planning something very special for the spring equinox. I am hoping Omar will be well enough to attend.”

  “Santa Maria!” Lucio sighed and slapped his forehead. He grabbed the reins of her horse and his own and jerked his head at the others to follow. Gregory and Nicholas trailed after him and Barshak brought up the rear.

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  Paddy picked up his mug and took a long draft of the heady ale. He slammed the heavy vessel back on the rock table and frowned at the sorry state of his pieces. Bart was tromping him. The knocker brushed a spider web from the brim of his hat and moved his queen in for the kill.

  “Great day in the morning!” Paddy stood up and dust flew from his jacket. His beard was covered with dust as well as his shoulders and legs. “Ye’ve beat me again and if I warn’t so sure o’ th’ truth, I’d say thot ye cheated.”

  “I dunna have t’ cheat t’ beat th’ loikes o’ ye, Paddy Elrood Puffingtowne!” Bart snorted, brushed the dust from his sleeves and stood up. He stretched his arms over his head and then took both mugs for refills from the opened keg. He stopped and cocked his head to one side. “I wonder ’oo wud be collin’ me ’orses?”

  “I didna ’ear anything,” Paddy yawned and accepted another round of stout. “Ye sure know ’ow t’ treat yur friends, Bart.” He toasted the Knocker and turned up the mug. “I’ve not ’ad a bettar draft this side o’ th’ River Shannon.”

  “Th’ only thing thot comes close is Ramsay Stout.” Bart resumed his seat and crossed his knobby knees. “Now thair was a brew t’ trade fur.”

  “Aye, those wair th’ days, they wair,” Paddy lamented.

  “Wud ye care fur another drubbin’ before ye go?” Bart began to put the pieces back on the table.

  “I wud rather jump into the foires of perdition than let ye beat me again, sirrah,” Paddy drained his ale a
nd clunked the mug down. “I’d best be gettin’ back t’ Buttersilk Farm. Binky will nae doubt ’ave me ’oide fur sure. Toime passes too fast ’ere fur me. I swear me beard ’as grown three inches!”

  “Well, yur welcome any toime, laddie.” Bart continued to set up the pieces. “I’ll be ready fur ye.”

  “I’m sure ye will,” Paddy nodded and planted his tam-o-shanter on his head. He picked up his shillelagh and started toward the mouth of the cave. “I’ll see me self out.”

  Bart waved one hand absently and took his pipe from his pocket. He’d have a nice smoke and then check on his stallions, he wud, he nodded solemnly to himself.

  Chapter Three of Sixteen

  He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers

  Barry sang the words of an old rock and roll song by Elvis Presley about kisses and lifting higher or some such as he rode along. He was not conscious of singing, but the eerie stillness made him extremely nervous, and Konrad’s last prophecies had done nothing to alleviate his depression. He wanted to see Rachel and Adam and Anne and his missed hearth and home and his music collection dearly. Anne had just barely begun to walk when he had left her at St. Simon’s Island in the care of Catharine de Goth and the other members of the extended family. Family! That was what he wanted. Hearth and home. Wife and children and the sound of laughter. Adam had the sweetest smile… the warmest eyes… and he loved the ponies and jousting and the… but Adam was a grown man, Izzy d’Ornan’s apprentice and he was back at the apprentice’s campsite, just as filthy, just as ragged and just as depressed as his father. He sang the next line of the ancient song. One of the King’s songs. He had a contraband disc player smuggled into Lemarik’s ark in his pocket and was using a precious solar battery pack, also smuggled, to listen to Elvis. It was the only comfort he had left. The search party plodded along at a slightly faster rate than the normal plodding of the convoy.

  Simon’s youngest son, Dan, rode a few yards to his left and Christopher Stewart was further on, bent over his horse’s neck, searching the earth for prints or signs of the two missing men. Barry’s mind was not on the search. He had fallen into a sort of continuous phase of half-waking consciousness where he thought of nothing, but the faces of his wife and his daughter. Another song started and he half mumbled the familiar words about love burning in hunks. He was burning, but not from love. The sun was already cooking them. He reached up and adjusted the neckerchief attached to his bulletproof pith helmet.

  Behind him, Edgard rode back and forth, searching for anything the three men in front of him might have missed. Barry didn’t like being around Simon or his father. He didn’t like being around Simon’s sons. They looked too much like their father and their sister, Rachel. Anne. Anne Marie Victoria Sussex, his infant daughter. The fairest blossom in the kingdom. The most precious gift ever sent from Heaven to live among men… Anne. Anne Marie. It hurt too much to look at their faces and see her there.

  “Anne Marie’s the name of his latest…,” he perked up a bit and picked up the words from the next song playing in his right ear. One of his favorites.

  “Hold up!” Edgard’s shout brought them about. He was off his horse, kneeling on the ground, looking at something. They had ridden back up the trail and found the place where Apolonio and Konrad had left the main body of the convoy. “There are two sets of prints here. They went that way.” Edgard nodded with his head when they approached. He mounted his horse and they set off, following the prints that were almost too light to see in the hard scrabble surface.

  They rode as hard as they dared in the broad open daylight. The horses were faring no better than their human counterparts. If they had not been of Corrigan’s stock, they would have perished long before, but they were tenacious beasts. Even so, they were close to the end of their ropes. The ground rose and they entered an even more barren terrain, the soil disappeared completely and the underlying rock lay exposed. The prints were no longer visible. They stopped and gave the horses a much deserved respite under the overhang of wind worn cliff. The escarpment rose before them like a wedge and ran off to the northwest and the northeast. The missing party could have gone down either side. Edgard used his gift to produce a small measure of water from the rock and they gave it to the horses.

  “We’ll split up. Dan and I will take the east side,” the Master told them when they had rested a bit. “Brother Barry, take Stewart and search along the west bank. We will meet atop the escarpment at the fork of the river. This was once an island in the stream.”

  “What river?” Christopher frowned and wiped at his filthy face. He took a bit of water on his fingertips and pressed them against his eyelids. “There has been no river in this godforsaken place for a million years.”

  “Ahhh, but you are young,” Edgard scoffed as he mounted his horse. “You do not remember the great rivers that once ran through these lands and the verdant valleys surrounding their life-giving waters. This was the greatest land in all the world, Sir Stewart. You should learn to appreciate history.”

  “I know history is as dead as this desert, Your Grace, and if we do not find our way out of it soon, the men in our party will die, the horses will die and we will wander in this wasteland for all eternity, dried up ghosts, blowing in the wind like so much dust.” Christopher lost his temper and caught the Master by his arm. “Have you no feelings at all for those soldiers back there? They are starving to death! Starving! And you insist nothing is wrong. I’ll tell you what’s wrong, sir, you are what’s wrong!”

  The Grand Master slid from his saddle and struck the younger Knight on the jaw before he could utter another sound, sending him flying against the rocks. He started after him, but Barry was quickly beside him holding him back.

  “Let it alone, sir,” the Seneschal told him gently. “He is as desperate as the rest of us. We all want to go home.”

  Edgard scowled, but did not pursue the fight. Christopher stumbled to his feet and went for his horse. He knew quite well that he had gotten completely out of line. Years ago, he would have come up fighting, but time and tide had shown him that one thing above all else had to be maintained or else, all was lost, and that was discipline. D’Brouchart had no love for him and the feeling was mutual, but there was the Order to think of. If they did not have the Order, they had nothing. He climbed on his horse and set out along the west side of the bank. Barry took his leave of the Master and went after him. He switched on his precious music machine as soon as he was away from d’Brouchart.

  Heartbreak Hotel’s lyrics seemed somehow appropriate to his current situation.

  The Knight of the Baldric kicked his horse just a bit and made the weary animal pick up its pace slightly as he lost sight of Christopher.

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  “Good God!” Apolonio sat down heavily in the blood stained soil. The horse lay in three distinct sections, oozing juices, dark blood and internal organs onto the ground. The magnificent blade was stained with the gruesome chore and Apolonio was a horror to behold, spattered, smeared, filthy, stinking and exhausted. Already, carrion birds were circling high above them, waiting for the best time to make a landing and get to feasting. Good meals were far and few between in the wastelands.

  “Don’t stop now,” Konrad urged him. “Help me. We can move this.”

  Apolonio staggered to his feet and leaned both hands on the relatively clean portion of the horse with the saddle still attached. Together, they shoved the middle portion of the horse’s dismembered cadaver off of the trapped leg.

  The nerves had never quite grown numb and when the pressure was released, Konrad passed out, quickly, cleaning and quietly, throwing out his arms on either side of his body, staring lifelessly at the blue sky.

  “Poppi?” Apolonio used the name he had once called his father, long ago, when they had lived with his mother in the underworld. He climbed over him and lifted his head. He was not dead, just near death from the pain of a double fracture. The ankle was twiste
d at an impossible angle. And the knee was no better, twisted in the opposite direction.

  Konrad responded only by rolling his eyes up until only the white showed and then they closed.

  “Well, that is probably for the best, Father,” Apolonio told him softly and then pulled him away from the blood and gore. The pain would have been unbearable, but the worst was yet to come.

  The apprentice arranged his father on the ground, prim and proper. He studied the odd angles of the left leg and then ripped the pants leg up to mid-thigh. The abnormal lumps indicated fractured bone and torn ligaments. Deep contusions caused incredible bruising of the skin, turning the skin almost completely black. He was no doctor, but he used what skill he had gleaned from reading first aid manuals and working with the human doctor attached to de Goth’s command to put his grandfather’s leg back into the proper shape. He had nothing to make into a splint except the scabbard and sword that his grandfather had worn. The work was done as quickly as possible and then he propped his father in his lap. He had only regained consciousness momentarily during the process, but they would have to move on now.

  The body of the horse was stinking to high heaven and already, vultures were circling over head. They had also heard some very strange noises earlier on. Something was bound to come after the carcass, and it would be best if they were not associated with it even it if was only vultures.

  “Poppi?” Apolonio poured a bit of his precious water on his father’s face and slapped him slightly. After a few moments, Konrad opened his eyes and groaned before asking for water. There was hardly a drop left in the canteen. “I’m sorry. There’s none left. Can you move?”

  “I’ll try,” Konrad nodded and Apolonio helped him up. The pain made him gasp. He grabbed the hilt of the sword and leaned on it awkwardly.