The Dove (28 page)

“What?”  She asked him.  “What did you see?”  Sophia collapsed on the cushions in front of him and pressed one hand against his right cheek.

“This thing is not a true comet that we are seeing.  I believe they gave them a name a few years ago.  Centaurs.  Half comet, half asteroid.  A body of a dual nature and a great mystery.  The dual nature of strange objects.”  He laughed softly.  “The Alchemical Texts are full of such things.  Dualities.  The androgynous nature of the universe.”  His voice trailed off.  “It would stand to reason such a thing would apply even to astronomy.”

“I don’t understand.”  She sat down next to him.

“It would seem that all that is fallen is a result of a split in the true nature.  God did not intend that things be the way they are.  His creation was perfect, and then, the Half-maker came and began to make unwholesome creations, imperfect, incomplete.  He tried to copy the Father’s perfection and he failed.  And you and I are the result of such tampering.  We are one and yet, apart.  The key is Unity.  The Word is Unity.  Now this thing, this Centaur, which is half comet and half planetary, is split again and destruction is the result.  It is a perfect irony and being perfect, must have been sent by the Father.”

“I don’t think so.”  Sophia shook her head.  “It may be perfectly evil, but that would only be from our point of view.  The Father would not make anything evil, even though, if He did, it would have no choice but to be perfect.  If this thing is a broken part of the comet or whatever you call it, the fact it is broken would show that it did not come from the Father, but from the remnants of Chaos.  When the Ancient One created his imperfect creation, he set in motion a chain of imperfect, defective things and actions that are still unfolding.  In order to purge the earth of his failed experiment, he had to upset the balance of the Father’s perfect creation.  I know you are a learned man, Mark, and you have studied the works of the scientists whereas I have not.  Even gone to Oxford, and more than once so that you might be closer to those you loved, though they loved you not, and yet, I was with you and not with you.  But even I know that one action leads to another.  Imperfection never leads to perfection and this thing that threatens us is simply another event in a long chain that was started before men covered the earth.  Before the angels fell from Heaven when they attempted to correct what was wrong.  It has always been said, and rightly so, that when the pure and the clean contact the filthy and unclean, it is the pure and clean, which becomes contaminated not the other way around.  You cannot clean a muddy rock without soiling the cloth.  No matter how clean the cloth was to begin with.  I know that my words pale in comparison to your understanding, but that is the way I see it.”

Mark raised one eyebrow.  What she said made some sense.

“The only way we can correct those things is to purify them without touching them.”  She continued.  “Without becoming involved.  That is where we went wrong.  We touched them and were contaminated by them.  Now we are part of them and they are part of us.  The Father is all love and compassion.  He knew that he could not correct the situation without destroying it completely and destruction is not in His nature.  Not the destruction of living, thinking beings.  His compassion for the pitiful existence of mankind is what has saved them from total destruction.  The Father can withstand all things because nothing touches Him.  It is by knowledge such as your own, we have hope of returning to Him.  Simply knowing He is there and here and everywhere is the ultimate knowledge.  When we truly accept we are imperfect and powerless to change it, then He will do the rest.  Our job is simply to trust Him and do what we know in our hearts that is right.  The Father does not really care what we do as long as we feel that it is truly right.  For He gave us the knowledge to know right and wrong.  He gave it to us as a gift.  A divine gift… a priceless gift.  Tell me, when you did something was wrong, did you not know it was wrong, even while you were doing it?  You didn’t have to agonize over it for hours or days to know.  You simply knew it.  And that is all we need.”

“Then what is the point?”  He asked her and his shoulders slumped.  “Are you saying all I have done, all I have suffered and all my Brothers have suffered is useless?  That all we had to do was pack up and go home?”

“There is always a time for just that.  Packing up and going home.  It has always been the way of men.  To fight until they can fight no more and then to simply lay down their arms and wait for the inevitable victory of death.  That is the difference between what the Father created and what this Half-Maker created.  When something is wrong, there is a struggle to correct it.  If nothing had been wrong in the beginning, there would have been no struggle.  There would have been no evil against which the good must struggle.  It is because of this struggle the Father allows us to continue to fight for the good.  The longer the fight, the more chance men have to learn the truth and become free of this world and not be left behind as stragglers in the divine scheme of things.”

Mark sat looking at her for a long few seconds without speaking.

“Northern hemisphere.  Probably in the Pacific Ocean or North America, if it remains whole.  If it breaks up, it will scatter across half the world and depending on where the first fragments hit, it might fall on North America and stop short of the Atlantic.  If it strikes first in North America, it will also strike in the Atlantic.  If it remains in large enough chunks, the tidal waves could reach the European coastline.”

“And it could reach us here?”  She asked.

“It is possible.”

“When?” 

“Twenty-six days.”

“What now?”

“We have twenty-six days to warn the people on St. Ramsay’s and St. Patrick’s.”

“Where will they go?”

Mark Andrew frowned.  “East.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Impossible.  There are too many people on St. Patrick’s and St. Ramsay’s.  We could never get them together and transport them all to the Alps in twenty-six days.  Perhaps twenty-six… weeks…” her voice trailed off.

“Then it will be up to God.  The Templar army and Corrigan’s fleet are already in route to Israel by now.  In a few days, they will be on land somewhere there or in Egypt.  They should be safe.”

“And their families?”

“Impossible to say.”  He said solemnly.

“Then we should not warn them.”

Mark dropped his pen on his notebook and stood up.  He reached for her hand and pulled her from the floor of the tent. 

“Get the lantern.  Bring some of the wine.”  He told her.  He had been avoiding her for obvious reasons.  Unity.  If he could not reconcile this breach, he would never be able to face his people again.  His people!  It was the first time that he had ever thought of the Brothers and their families as his people.  It was only a matter of mechanics, physics, proxemics, polarity, applied magick and faith.

He put on his sword and his cloak.

“Where we going?”  She grabbed a bottle of wine from a wicker basket.  Sophia had no idea where Mark had gotten these things.  He had left her in the Abyss with Semiramis and Diana briefly and returned for her.  When they had come here, the tent, the equipment, as well as the stones for making the circle were already on the island.  It had been impossible to tell how long he had been gone before coming back for her and if he had not told her where they were, she would never have known.  The place was barren, windswept and bleak without discernible landmarks in any direction other than the mysterious mound in the center of the island.

“Up the hill.”  He took her arm and started off in the darkness.  “If what you say is true, then I am agonizing for nothing.”

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

The mound or hillock that Sophia had found most uninteresting at first glance, proved much more intriguing on closer examination.  The remnants of the archaeological expedition that had once been here lay scattered about the top of the hill where they had carefully marked off the area using grid lines made of nylon string attached to pegs driven into the rocky ground.  Some of the lines were still intact while others flapped in the hot breeze of early evening.  A sizable passage leading down roughly carved steps to an underground network of tunnels had been excavated.  The entire complex had been carved and built of massive stones.  The place was immense and the structure must have taken up most of the hill, in fact, the hill was simply the covered remains of this building, whatever it had been.  It did not have the appearance of having been a village or a dwelling, but rather some sort of ceremonial place with long, straight passages leading to a central chamber at the center of the hill.  Remarkably, it was seemed to be largely unharmed by the passage of time, protection having been provided when it was covered over by the desert winds eons ago.  Whoever had built it had been very accomplished in the art of stonework.  The interior walls were covered with spirals, X’s, and diamond shapes.  There were numerous grooved notches on pillars interspersed throughout the complex.  Some of the walls were made of sparkling quartz blocks. 
Amazing and mysterious
.  There were four smaller chambers off the central room and each contained rock basins that might have once held water.  A few pieces of broken, clay pottery were scattered about the floors, each one carefully outlined in chalk and numbered by the archaeologists.

The hill itself contained a very rare spring that emerged from beneath the rocks on the north side and here many small shrubs had taken root in the harsh conditions.  The soldiers went to work hacking out a sizable portion of the remaining vegetation to disguise the trucks and ATV’s from prying eyes.  They refilled their water tanks and canteens from the cold spring and unloaded their sleeping bags and other equipment, preparing to make camp for the day.  They would start out again as soon as it was dark. 

The soldiers situated themselves about the hill in defensive positions while others made ready to get some rest in the main corridor.  McGuffy showed Mark and Sophia to one of the chambers off of the main room and left a lantern for them along with food, water and two sleeping bags.  The small lantern lit the enclosure, reflecting back from the crystalline walls in incredible beauty.  The other non-military companions made themselves at home in the other chambers.  The golden patch covering the wound on the back of his hand glittered in the reflected lantern light and Selwig pronounced it virtually healed before turning in for the day with Simon.  Sophia was still furious with Bari for having slapped his grandfather and refused to allow him near Mark.  Bari was sullen and silent, clutching his backpack to him protectively, wondering what would become of him when and if they ever escaped.  Nicole was still making efforts to keep the attention of Lt. Galipoli and doing quite well.  Everywhere he went, he felt the watchful eyes of Nicholas and Gregory.  Simon had no doubt told them to keep a close watch on the Emperor.

Sophia spread one of the sleeping bags on the floor near the dry basin and sat down next to Mark, leaning her tired back against the stone.  She handed him a canteen and one of the MRE’s that the soldiers had provided for them.  He sat looking about the chamber in wonder.

“Pretty.”  He smiled.  “The crystal palace.”

“Mark.”  Sophia had to smile.  “You need to eat so we can get some sleep.  This is not the crystal palace in your dream.”

“No.  A different one.”  He told her and picked up the candy bar from the metal box.  “Sugar.”

“Sweet stuff.  Eat the stew first.”  She told him and spooned up her own.  “It’s pretty good, considering.”

“Ahh.”  He nodded and bit into the chocolate.  “Sweet.  Sweet is good.”  He wrinkled his nose at the stew and vegetables.

“But you need the other stuff.  It will make you strong.”  She told him, showing him the muscles in her arms.

“I know.”  He nodded and continued to eat the candy while he looked about.  “The sun gives life.”

“Where?”  She frowned.  The chamber was completely cut off.  Without the lantern there would have been no light penetrating here.

“There.”  He pointed to a double spiral on the wall in front of them.  One of the walls was dark stone while the rest was set with the sparkling crystal blocks.

“That looks like a spring to me. Winding and unwinding.”  She told him.

“No. Not just spring. All seasons.  Also summer, winter and fall.”  He misunderstood her use of the word ‘spring’.  The sun as the earth travels about it.  First one way and then the other.”  He told her.  “Winter and summer.  Summer and winter.  Near and far.  Far and near.  And there is the star.”

He pointed at the diamond shape above the spirals.

“That is not a star.”  She shook her head.  “That is a rectangle or a diamond.”

“OK.  Not a
real
star.  A planet.  Venus!  Goddess of the morning.”  He said and put aside the MRE before getting up.  He searched the floor until he found a piece of the chalk that the scientists had used to mark the relics.  Sophia watched in fascination as he added lines to the diamond shape, making it into a five-pointed star by adding four simple lines to it.  “Venus.  Eight years.”  He smiled and pointed to a row of X’s marked in the stone above the diamond.  “One. Two. Three. Four. Ffffiiiive. Six. Seven. Eight.”  He counted off the X’s while pointing to the eight points of intersection on the star.  “Summer. Winter. Spring. Fall.”  He turned to look at her as if expecting her to fully understand what he was saying.