6th Horseman, Extremist Edge Series: Part 1 (16 page)

“Then why did King Louis IX find the city
dead after he came back with his second army?”

The priest shrugs. “No one knows. But it
would seem that the city died from some disease. Maybe, during the
first siege, their food and water supply became contaminated with
dysentery or some other disease.” The priest gets up from the table
and nods to me slightly. “Fascinating isn’t it? To be struck by a
meteor would most surely be the will of God.”

I thank him for his time and find my way out
of Vatican City and to my hotel. My room overlooks the River Tiber
that runs through the heart of Rome. I stay for many weeks, not
wanting to return home. I become obsessed with why or how the
Caesareans died. Surely dysentery wouldn’t have killed every last
woman and child. I look up many other siege conquests on the
Internet. None played out in this way. Caesarea was truly
extraordinary.

One night, while watching the city lights
from my balcony, I make a conclusion. The dead city of Caesarea had
to connect to the Stone of Allah in some way. Did the meteorite
kill the people? Did its famous nature bring thieves to the city?
Maybe a civil dispute? I draw a diamond shaped stone in my notebook
and scribble a dark heart in the center.

I find an online article about King Louis IX
and his last crusade. It claims his brother pushed him to go to
Tunisia for one last conquering. There he grew sick and died.
Tunisia is a small Mediterranean country next to Libya and directly
south of Italy. There the King died from what historians believe to
be dysentery. There is also another dysentery reference, another
coincidence. I circle the word in my notebook over and over and
over.

A pop goes off somewhere in the city. Lights
burst in the night. It almost stops my heart. Another pop. There
are fireworks going off as a celebration begins. I watch the
firework show and wonder why I feel so obsessed with this stone.
What is God trying to tell me?

I go back to the Internet. In the margin of
the Louis IX article is a picture of an ornate crown. It looks too
large and cumbersome to be worn, but who knows. Catholics can get
really gaudy. I read further. The crown is a piece of art bought by
Louis IX called The Holy Crown of Jesus Christ. It was commissioned
just after the Caesarea attack. It is now on display at the Notre
Dame in Paris. I know I have to follow every lead regarding the
King, and this is a lead.

I hop on the Eurostar train and take it to
Milan early the next morning. It’s an incredible ride through
fields of grape vines, sheep, and a castle on a hilltop. Buildings
centuries old still stand and function. The train flies by a poor
shepherd grabbing for his cell phone. At a train track crossing I
see a wealthy man in a limited edition BMW, tapping his fingers
impatiently on the steering wheel. I stare out the window like a
kid at the circus. In Milan I transfer to a different train and
head to Paris. I dine on fresh bread, Fourme d’Ambert cheese
flavored with mixed nuts, and a glass of pinot grigio. I arrive
shortly after eleven at night, full and alive. I stay at a nearly
five-hundred-year old hotel in a small but quaint room.

The next morning, I take a taxi to Notre Dame
de Paris after some fruit and a pastry for breakfast. The church’s
shadow looms over me as I step out of the taxi. The architecture is
truly amazing. Two square towers stand as a front entrance to the
church. The towers are adorned with arched windows. Centered
between the towers is the Grand Gallery. It has a pointed roof with
a circular stained glass window at the apex. The church’s girders
extend from the pointed roof and continue over the sidewalls,
finally arching to the gardens. I think they are called flying
buttresses. They look like the ribs of some enormous creature. The
bell tower is in the back with pointed archways and steeples. It’s
beautiful. I recognize the gargoyles that adorn the building. It is
the very definition of Gothic architecture.

I enter the massive front doors behind a
group of tourists. The vaulted ceiling and all the elaborate
stonework makes me dizzy. I walk down the aisle between richly
stained wooden pews and lines of tourists.

Along the sides of the great room are
exhibits. I find the crown easily. It’s an elaborately formed piece
of gold. It has a huge round top piece with a typical crown top. It
rests on a gold pedestal that has gold figures sitting on thrones
positioned around the base. Jesus Christ is depicted in the center,
the Virgin Mary on the left side, and some other figure on the
right. Maybe that is supposed to be the Holy Spirit in human form.
Maybe it was John the Baptist.

A woman stops next to me and stares at the
same crown. She is young, has darker skin than I, and is of mixed
African decent. Her hair is black and straight, not curly. She
wears thick glasses and looks bookish. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she
asks.

Even though I dislike these pieces, I nod.
They were paid for with church money that was stolen from the
people. I don’t think God would appreciate that. It’s the
corruption of the Catholic Church that paid for these pieces with
the sweat and blood of slaves. I mumble so she can’t quite hear me,
“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in
heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. Exodus
twenty-three, verse four.”

“The piece was bought from Baldwin II who
ruled Constantinople at that time. It was later sold to King Louis
IX. It’s incomplete. If you can believe that,” she says. She’s
obviously American and probably happy to speak with other
countrymen on the subject.

“Is that right?” I reply. “What more could
they do? This is already filled with too much detail. I think it
would make my mother faint, God rest her soul.”

“It’s not a wearable crown. It’s a decorative
status piece. But he would have carried it with him on occasion.
The piece was said to have the power of God.” The woman stands on
her toes and points to the top of the crown. “There are four clasps
inside the crown that are bent inward around a gold cup.”

I peer into the crown and notice the clasps.
“I see. Something was supposed to go in there?”

She nods. “Clasps like those usually hold a
precious stone.” Her eyes widen. “Must have been made for a rather
large stone.” She smiles and moves on to the next exhibit.

I study the group of clasps in the middle of
the crown. The woman is right. It must have been made for an
unusually large stone. The Stone of Allah. Did King Louis IX
recover the meteor in the diseased city of Caesarea? It was written
in the transcript that there were no jewels or treasure left in the
city, but what if there were? What if that one meteorite had been
kept secret because it was an embarrassment to King Louis IX and
his Holy Army, a stone he would not part with? His trophy. I
picture the King carrying around the audacious crown. It was
absurdly large, but fit his ostentatious attitude. It is silly to
make trinkets to worship.

I find a seat in on a wooden bench. Light
filters through a glass window and hits me in the face. I squint,
but choose to stare at it. The light is warm on my face. I believe
it is the light of God giving me the opportunity to uncover a
six-hundred-year-old secret. Me, of all preachers!

The night arrives and I still have no
appetite. I make my nightly call to my wife early, eager to hear
her voice.

She sounds concerned. “What you are telling
me is that you’re going to stay in Italy for another week?” she
exclaims. “I’m worried about you, Markus.”

“I’ve got to see this through, Marian. I have
a purpose now,” I emphasize. I feel more alive than I have in
years. “When I return you will understand. Please trust me.” I
close my cell phone. I’m going to find out what this Stone of Allah
is all about, and why there are men who will kill to keep it a
secret. I will bring this information out of the shadows and into
the light, and maybe this war will end and I can go home.

I
walk to Central
Park, a couple of blocks east of my condo, wondering how I’m going
to get out of the city. My pack is loaded with hiking gear and as
much water as I can carry. It’s about sixty pounds on my back, a
bit much, but I don’t want to take any chances. Two years ago I had
spent two weeks deep in the Chimborazo Mountains in Ecuador on an
Earth expedition with the Sierra Club. That’s when I fell in love
with hiking. It was a chance to get out of the city. I love the
quiet, or at least, thought I did. As it turns out, the real quiet
is this dead city. No cars, horns, bikers, no one yelling, no
alarms or sirens, no birds, rats, crickets. Nature’s silence is
different -- richer, and filled with subtle sounds. That is real
beauty.
This
is unnatural.

As I round the corner of One Hundredth Street
I hear a shot. I duck instinctively. It’s an overweight guy,
probably about thirty years old, looking all messed up, holding a
six-shot revolver. I wonder if he is sick, until I see him pull out
a flask and swig from it. He isn’t sick, just drunk. I look around
and see only dead people.

I approach and introduce myself, “My name’s
Ian.”

“Hey, I’m Ben.”

He puts the gun away, which I’m glad for. He
turns out to be a decent person that just looks like shit. I
probably look like I’ve been slapped around too.

“Are you sick?” I ask hesitantly. I don’t
quite know what else to say, but I’m tired of the dialogue in my
head being my only friend.

Ben shakes his head. “Na. Just pissed.”

“You made any plans?”

“What do you mean?” He puts his hand on his
forehead. “Sorry, I’m slow.” A moment of silence passes. “I guess
I’m gonna get out of here.”

“I was thinking the same,” I reply. So we
start walking north. “I need to pack some more food first, and then
we can find where the people are.”

Ben kicks a dead guy lying in the street.
“Yeah, let’s find people that are alive. That’d be a fuckin’ good
start.”

“I heard the jets yesterday. I think they
took out the bridges,” I mention.

“Government’s gotta have a quarantine line
set up,” Ben slurs. He takes a pull from his flask. “I made myself
a bacon and potato burrito just a bit ago.”

“Precooked?”

“Yeah.”

“Take me there,” I order lightly. “I’m
starved.”

“Me too. I think there’s enough for a few
more burritos.”

I have a huge question on my mind, but not
sure how to ask. Finally, I just spit it out, “Do you know why
you’re not sick?”

Ben’s face reddens. He looks at me for a
moment then looks away. “I must be immune or something.”

“Yeah, me too,” I lie.

We walk down the street that surrounds
Central Park until we make it to the northwest corner. I see the
Fredrick’s round-a-bout. My stomach growls, reminding me of my dire
need for food. “I can’t take the hunger. I’m stopping for a
snack.”

There’s a BP gas station on the other side of
the round-a-bout. Cars are bumper to bumper under the canopy.
People had been trying to fill up before getting out of town. They
never had a chance. I pass a blue Volkswagen that had driven up on
the curb between the two pumps trying to fit in between a truck and
a motorcycle. The motorcycle driver had lain down next to his bike
with the gas handle still in his hands. He is wearing a brown
leather jacket, jeans, has bright red hair, and is lying in a
puddle of gasoline. The driver of the blue station wagon is an
older woman who’s slumped in the front seat of her car. In the back
seat are the bodies of two children, a girl around eight laid
across the back seat holding her younger brother in her arms. They
are so still. I choke on my own spit then run to the store, feeling
a wave of anxiety fill my head. I fling open the door to the
convenient store and hold it open for Ben. I squeeze my eyes shut
trying to burn away the image of the two kids from my mind. The
image will stay with me until the end of time.

Sadness fills my body. I feel the darkness
all around me. It seems to enter my body through my skin. The
sadness spreads all the way to my toes. My whole body disappears.
Somehow I become the sadness. I feel so much shame and want to die.
My mind fogs over as I lock myself in a prison of utter regret.
What did I do?
I cry like I’d never cried before. Sob after
sob erupts from me as I slide to the floor, covering my face and
hands. I’m ashamed to be walking, to be alive, when those two kids
have died. No one will know why this happened, except me and Zilla.
I hate knowing what I know.

When my outburst subsides like the tidal wave
always does, I take deep breaths and open my eyes. Ben is at the
other end of the store, grabbing beer and chips. Why is he immune?
What’s so special about him? Some drunk is spared but not those
kids? It doesn’t seem fair. I feel the burning desire to kill Zilla
with my own hands. I want to rip his throat out with my fingers. I
want to kick him so hard he would bleed inside and die a slow,
painful death. He didn’t tell me this would happen, but I can’t
blame it all on Zilla. Unintended consequences do not absolve me
from guilt. I released the virus into a population. The choice and
the consequences are mine.