The Black Madonna (The Mystique Trilogy) (23 page)

‘It’s odd to think those bones are the very same ones holding me up right now,’ he said.

Mia had visited this site soon after this present time and seen Albray resurrected. Still, in the future reality we now inhabited, this would not happen—Albray had already become Arcturus and so long as he was operating outside of space and time, any changes to the events of his past would not affect him.

Around the exterior walls of the round chamber were flaming torches, put there for illumination. I found this puzzling. ‘I wasn’t expecting to find the temple all lit up like this,’ I commented.

‘It is a little surprising,’ Arcturus said, ‘given that it should have been vacant for the last two hundred years! Would you ladies be so kind?’

He directed us to the annexes where the keys to the Ark Chamber were kept, then strode down the path that led to the tunnel up to the surface.

I made haste towards the white-pillared annexe, which contained the Highward Firestone vial, otherwise known as the Star. Thana moved off in the opposite direction to fetch the Firestone vial from the red-pillared annexe.

But when Arcturus reached the path that ascended to the surface, he stopped abruptly. ‘The temple is open!’ he cried out.

‘What?’ I came out of the annexe holding the glowing white Star vial.

‘Molier must have got the chamber open long before he even contacted Mia,’ Arcturus said, turning on his heel and striding back to the central platform to meet us. ‘The whole thing was staged purely to get Mia here to retrieve the keys and open the Ark Chamber for him.’

‘Well, doh!’ Thana mocked as she joined us with the Fire vial, for she had been similarly deceived by Molier many centuries before.

‘That means he’s here right now!’ Arcturus looked ready to finish off the Orme-filled vampire and be done with it, again!

‘Albray, I know you want nothing better than to finish Molier again,’ I sympathised, ‘but if he was to be killed while you are operating within the confines of time and space, you will cease to exist, for his death now will affect your resurrection then.’

‘What?’ Albray was understandably alarmed to learn this.

‘Trust me,’ I advised. ‘I’m a space/time architect and such an encounter would be very bad for you.’

He looked perturbed, but nodded.

‘While we’re standing around here, the clock is ticking,’ Thana reminded us, and handed her vial to me. ‘You two retrieve the ring,’ she said, and pulled out her liquid-light gun. ‘I’ll keep watch for Molier.’

On either side of the golden door to the Ark Chamber was an inset designed to house one of the vials. Once each vial was placed into its holder, the door vanished to reveal a small connecting chamber hosting a golden breastplate and a copper bowl and pitcher. We had no need of these safety measures today, for we were here with the consent of the Elohim. Two more keyholes for the Star and Fire vials were to be found on the inner door to the chamber.

‘This is very exciting,’ I said to Arcturus as the door to the central chamber materialised once more behind us. ‘I never got this far into the temple before.’

Aside from the glowing contents of the vials, the room fell into darkness.

‘This ought to be a rare treat then,’ Arcturus said, sounding pleased to be the one to indulge me. He placed the vials in the holders provided and the massive doors of the Ark Chamber parted.

A red pathway led to a central ringed platform, around which flowed a sea of the same flammable fluid that filled the canals in the outer chamber. I couldn’t make out much of the detail of the chamber as it was in darkness, although I could see the light from the vials in Arcturus’s hands reflected at an odd angle in the ceiling.

‘Wait here,’ Arcturus said as he retrieved the keys. ‘I’ll turn the lights on.’

He walked onto the central platform and placed the Star vial and the Fire vial in their separate conductors atop a large object. As soon as the vials were housed correctly, a current of electricity formed an arc of light between them. Their glowing contents were vacuumed into the belly of the object, which flared with golden light to reveal itself as one of the ancient arks of myth.

It was about one hundred and fifteen centimetres in length by seventy centimetres in height and appeared as thick as it was tall. Hieroglyphs featured along its sides and at each corner stood a leg support of rich polished timber. On the golden lid, known as ‘the mercy seat’, two metal points rose up and curved inward towards each other. These held the Star and Fire vials, the electric current running between them illuminating the entire chamber.

The place exceeded all my expectations with its grandeur and I gasped in amazement. Its walls were of highly polished gold, as were the several large pillars that upheld its roof and the inverted golden dome in its centre. The unusual dome hung directly above the central platform and mirrored the entire chamber, the golden ark at its centre.

Arcturus held his hands out over the ark, as if warming himself on its glow. Orange light beamed from his palms into the ark’s lid and the golden mercy seat rose slowly into the air to expose a coiled red crystal ring. The ring levitated out of the ark and Arcturus reached forth and claimed it. As he did, the ark’s lid slammed down and the chamber lights went out.

After a moment, the two vials atop the mercy seat began to refill, their glowing contents providing some light in the darkness. As soon as they were full, Arcturus retrieved and pocketed them. ‘Best get them out of harm’s way while we’re at it,’ he said.

With no more light by which to admire the beautiful chamber, I turned and followed him out.

Arcturus placed the vials in the keyholes either side of the door leading back into the central chamber of the Star-Fire complex. The doors to the Ark Chamber closed behind us then the exit door vanished to expose us to the comparatively light-filled main chamber. To our great horror, we were met by the sight of Molier and three companions, two male and one female, standing upon the central platform beneath the golden dome.

There was no mistaking Molier: his pale, sun-deprived skin, his dark hair and even darker eyes were burned into my memory—along with his many other guises, animal and demon. He had not aged a day in over two hundred years!

The group appeared mystified to see us emerging from the ancient chamber they so desperately sought access to. But it didn’t take Molier long to recognise our faces among those he’d known during his seven hundred years upon this Earth.

‘Sir Albray Devere and Lady Ashlee Granville-Devere—fancy seeing the two of you together, and here of all places!’ He began to chuckle, although clearly a little nervous about the implications of this event—and his eyes darted to the entrance to check that Albray’s body still lay where he had left it to rot in the thirteenth century. Then he grinned as the truth dawned on him. ‘You found your way into the inter-time war, you lucky devils,’ he deduced, and his eyes narrowed as he prepared to take on his demon form.

Where is Thana?
I wondered, until a light-bullet shot down from the golden dome above Molier and sent him flying onto his back. Three more light-bullets and his companions joined him on the ground, all writhing as the Orme spewed forth from their bodies.

I was horrified by the event and, concerned for Albray’s continued existence, I shoved him towards the porthole. Thankfully Thana was on my wavelength. She swirled down in a whirlwind of liquid light to retrieve Albray and immediately shot back up into the Signet station with him, safely delivering him into the Otherworld and away from the consequences of the time-space continuum of this Earth plane.

In a moment Thana returned to join me in the Star-Fire temple. ‘All safe,’ she commented upon touchdown. ‘And now we won’t have to worry about the mischief Molier might cause in the future.’

I was still gaping at the ease with which she’d despatched Molier. ‘What I wouldn’t have done for one of those weapons two hundred years ago!’ I said.

Thana smiled. ‘I must confess, it did feel awfully good.’ She looked down at the vampire, who, having vomited up an excessive amount of black bile, was now returning to his true age and rotting into a gooey pile of flesh and bone.

His comrades, who had only recently fallen victim to their Orme addictions, had passed out from the effort of their purge, but would be as right as rain after a good sleep and a shower.

‘Let’s drag these guys out,’ I suggested. ‘We can’t leave them to be trapped in here for all eternity.’ For once the sun set, the entrance to the temple would close and, without an abundant supply of Orme powder, could never be opened again.

I looked down at one of the bodies—André Pierre, the man who was destined to bring Mia onto this project. ‘Well, this reinforces the fact that André will never get his hands on your ringstone,’ I told Arcturus. ‘Chances are he’ll never even know of its existence.’

‘What, for the love of the goddess, took you so long?’ Polaris fumed when we returned.

‘We kicked Molier’s butt into oblivion,’ Thana boasted, raising her arms in victory. ‘And his mates.’

‘We’re not supposed to be changing history,’ Polaris stressed.

‘But you said that we would…’ Arcturus held up the red-coiled ring he’d been instructed to retrieve and offered it to Polaris, ‘…and so we have.’

Polaris declined to take the treasure. ‘No, you don’t give it to me now, you give it to me then,’ and he motioned back down the tunnel towards its entrance.

‘Then our work here is done.’ Arcturus led the way along the tunnel.

As we followed him, I noted the drop in the cavern’s vibratory frequency as the spectacular jewelled tunnel faded back into the grey rock surface.

‘I think I should wait here for a bit,’ Polaris suggested as we reached the entrance to the cavern, not wanting to meet his other self during the handover of the ring.

‘Sure,’ Arcturus said, and went ahead alone. The rest of us waited with Polaris until Arcturus reappeared and beckoned us into the daylight. ‘It’s done,’ he said.

‘I was here?’ Polaris wanted to be sure all had gone as he’d remembered.

‘You were,’ Arcturus assured him. ‘Don’t you trust me to do something as simple as handing over a ring?’

Polaris didn’t want to answer that. He pointed to a small tear in Arcturus’s Amenti suit. ‘What happened there?’ he asked.

Arcturus shrugged. ‘I must have caught it on something.’ He held the tear together and it mended itself. ‘Good as new. Can we move on now?’ And he led us back to where the
Klieo
was parked.

The rest of the team followed, but Polaris hung back, looking perplexed.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

My husband declined to answer.

M
IA
D
EVERE
—MERIDAN

I awoke to find the concerned faces of Talori and Castor staring down at me. As I stirred, their worried looks changed to broad smiles.

‘There, I told you, your Lady du Lac is perfectly fine.’ Talori sounded like she was having a little dig at her partner as she ruffled his hair.

‘We were worried,’ Castor explained, but Talori appeared more interested in the idle control deck.

‘What does all this stuff do?’ she asked. She didn’t dare touch anything, but she had a good close look and a sniff as well. ‘Blue Flame energy,’ she concluded after a whiff of the funnel.

‘Should you two be in here?’ I asked.

‘The captain said it was okay to keep an eye on you,’ Castor assured me, as I found my composure and sat upright.

‘Oh my goddess.’ I felt the old familiar sensation of a trinket hanging about my neck, and I reached inside my shirt to discover my ringstone had returned to my possession. ‘Praise the heavens!’ I gripped it tightly, resolute that it would never leave my sight again. ‘If this has returned to my possession, then the past has been altered somehow, so that I never misplaced it.’

‘Curious,’ frowned Castor.

‘Where are Polaris and Levi?’ I wondered out loud.

‘They’ve gone with the others to assist Arcturus in opening his Signet station. They should be back any time now. They’ve already been gone longer than expected.’

Talori looked over. ‘The captain did mention before he left that he expected a minor delay.’

‘Why?’ I wondered. ‘Because Shasta is Arcturus’s station?’

‘I really couldn’t say,’ Talori commented diplomatically, not willing to buy into the long-standing tension between the two men.

‘Ouch!’ I searched through my pockets to find whatever it was that had been sticking into me as I slept. ‘Gotcha.’ I held the offending item up to examine it, and Castor recognised the little module.

‘Is that—’

‘—one of the Nefilim’s new auric simulators? It certainly is. I meant to give it to Levi to pull apart.’

‘Ooooh, interesting.’ Talori came to take a closer look. ‘Is it still operational?’

I hadn’t thought to check. ‘Let’s find out.’ I clipped the module onto the back of my trousers. ‘It has to have a telepathic command sensor as it’s too darn small to be operated any other way. Okay…’ I stood up to focus better.

‘The amazing Meridan will now transform into…’ Talori announced with gusto, taking a seat beside Castor to watch the show.

I looked at Castor, and before I’d even finished sizing him up Talori was applauding. I gazed down at myself, amazed to view Castor’s form.

‘Two of you!’ Talori hugged Castor and nuzzled her forehead against his cheek. ‘What a delicious idea.’

A great crack sounded and a sphere of light erupted in the middle of the room and steadily grew larger.

Remembering what Tamar had forewarned about Castor being hunted down, Talori immediately suggested he use his shamanistic powers to disappear.

‘Flea,’ Castor said without a second’s hesitation, transforming and hopping into Talori’s pocket.

I heard Talori call out to me, but my attention was on the sphere of light, which had now widened into a tunnel. At the far end was Killian Labontè, appearing rather the worse for wear.

‘Tamar is in trouble…you have to help us. Come!’ He beckoned me urgently. ‘Please! I know you don’t know me, but if you’re one of the Amenti staff, you have to help!’