The Wayward Godking (37 page)

Abaddon’s mouth fell open slightly and Inanna tightened her grip on her consort’s arm.

Konrad stood facing the angelic being without a flicker of emotion showing in his dark features. If never before had he resembled his father, the Ritter, now he looked exactly like his father as he drew the dragon-hilted sword slowly from the long, black leather scabbard.

“Is this the way of your Lord?” Abaddon asked him as he shoved Inanna away from him. “Does revenge fit with what you profess to believe, Sir?”

“I profess to believe nothing except that you stand for everything evil I have come to loathe over the course of several lifetimes,” Konrad answered, lowered his head slightly and began to circle the Angel of Destruction, the Angel of the Abyss. Abaddon, the Destroyer. The Holder of the Key of Death.

“Do you know who I am, Sir?” Abaddon drew his own sword. A magnificent blade forged in the Time before Time.

“You are the Angel of the Bottomless Pit,” Konrad said. “
And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
The Scorpion Lord! Even as you held sway over my Master’s son, so you took also my friend and my companion!”

“We all have our jobs to do, Sir,” Abaddon said and glanced toward Mark Andrew as if for permission to strike, but Mark Andrew shook his head minutely. Negative. “Would you slay me for having done my job, Sir? My Father in Heaven does not make mistakes.”

“You are not your Father,” Konrad reminded him and then lunged forward with the great sword he had inherited from his own father.

Abaddon avoided the tip of the blade and allowed the Knight to step past him. Inanna started forward from the edge of the growing crowd of spectators, but Mark Andrew caught her arm, holding her back. Konrad came around again and Abaddon parried the blow easily, stepped back and waited. The dark Knight was beyond reason. He charged in again and again as the angel ducked, parried and avoided each and every attack without even striking a single blow in defense. Still Mark gave no permission to strike back.

They fought, or rather Konrad fought the dark angel all across the meadow. The one-sided fight went on so long, many of the spectators turned away, embarrassed to watch. When Konrad wore himself down and fell of his own accord on his hands and knees, Mark drew the angel aside and whispered something quickly in his ear. The angel’s expression changed and grew very dark. He took up his position again, waiting patiently for Konrad to recover his feet stubbornly, intent upon continuing the futile struggle.

Konrad staggered forward, the weight of the great broadsword almost too much now for him to lift in his exhaustion. The crowd had ceased to call out encouragement or discouragement as the case may have been, but stood quietly, watching as if hypnotized by the scene before them. Apolonio had ceased his attempts to quell his grandfather’s anger several minutes earlier and now turned quietly to make his way through the crowd in disgust. Konrad would not stop. His intemperate wrath was quite equally matched by his obstinate nature.

“Give over, Sir!” Abaddon spoke to him for the first time since the combat had commenced. “You are exhausted. Your anger has undone your resolve to kill me, my friend. Perhaps another time.”

“You mock me?” Konrad gasped and then glanced around at the grim faces of his audience. “You won’t even fight me. You make a jest of my honor, sir, as is befitting of your reputation. You will kill me here and now and allow me to join my forefathers for I have nothing left but my hatred.”

“Konrad!” Oriel shook loose of her husband’s grasp and went to take his left arm. “Please come away. You cannot defeat him. It is obvious that you are no match for him. You’ve made your point. We all feel the same pain as you, but he has made his point as well. Nothing is done that is not God’s Will!”

Konrad shoved his sister away roughly and stood up straighter.

“God’s Will then shall it be that I die this day in front of all these witnesses as a martyr to my father’s memory and of all the good men, who have died at the hands of this beast,” Konrad said, fending her off again. “Kill me and make your day’s wages.”

Abaddon turned his head slowly and looked pointedly at Mark Andrew. The Knight of Death looked up as if he did not notice Abaddon’s silent appeal. Konrad, on the other hand, chose that moment to make his last and greatest effort so far. He brought the sword up quickly and used the very move that he had learned from his former Master so many years earlier during his brief apprenticeship to the
Chevalier du Morte
. He stepped forward, dipped slightly and brought the sword full around, fully intending to cleave Abaddon’s head from his shoulders. Abaddon recovered his attention in time to catch the blade in his hand before it made contact with his neck. The blade sliced his hand and continued on as he turned, the momentum taking it directly into his chest and through his body. Abaddon sank to his knees amidst many outcries of “Foul!”amongst the crowd. Konrad stood looking at him in surprise.

Inanna shrieked and ran forward to Abaddon’s side, unsure of what to do, if anything, for him as his stood on his knees looking down at the black dragon’s bejeweled red eyes on the hilt of Konrad’s sword. The blood ran from the wound, down the blade and poured onto the grass. The crowd fell back as Lucifer and Ashmodel and made their way to the forefront. Both angels rushed forward to his aid, but saw that it was too late. Ashmodel held him as Lucifer pulled the sword from him. Abaddon collapsed into Inanna’s arms as the crowd quickly dispersed. No one knew what to do.

Only King Il Dolce Mio seemed able to snap out of the trance. He stood in front of Konrad with both hands on his hips, scowling deeply.

Konrad picked up his sword and wiped it on his sleeve before placing it back in the scabbard.

“You Sir, have allowed your hatred to consume you,” Il Dolce Mio told him as the Queen made her way through the departing elves. “What good have you done here, but added more blood to the cauldron?”

“You overstep your bounds, young king,” Konrad grumbled, and then met his mother’s angry stare.

“Konrad!” Queen Ereshkigal stopped in front of her son and assumed very nearly the same pose as her smaller counterpart with her hands on her hips. “You are ruining the festivities! Why have you attacked my servant?”

“Your servant?” Konrad blinked at her and then leaned slightly to look around her where Abaddon lay bleeding on the ground while Inanna struggled to remove his billowing, blood-soaked robe with the help of Lucifer and Ashmodel. “Abaddon is your servant?”

“He was.” The Queen glanced over her shoulder. “And I have only just recently retrieved him from the Seventh Gate and tended his wounds. Now, here we have him cut down again. For what purpose?”

“He deserves no less,” Konrad told her in confusion and looked about for Mark Andrew or any sign of support. Everyone had abandoned him. His anger had subsided and he felt somehow hollow.

“Oh? And who made you God that you can pronounce what is deserved and what is not?” She asked him angrily. “You would do well to mind your behavior, Konrad. Of all my children, I expect better of you. Even the Healer’s daughter knows better how to treat the servants than you. How can you hold him responsible for following orders? He is a servant and no more.”

Konrad stood staring after his mother as she instructed the two angels to bring their fallen comrade to her chambers. Inanna hurried after her, weeping loudly. Ereshkigal stopped long enough to dress her down for the noise before continuing. The Queen was truly angry.

“Well, what did you expect?” Il Dolce Mio asked him when they were alone. “A servant is not to be treated so, my friend. They are not responsible for their actions.”

“That is ridiculous,” Konrad objected.

“Is it?” The little king followed after him as he stomped toward the forest. “Abaddon is what he is. He can change it no more than Lucifer, the Light-Bringer or Ashmodel, the Lord of April. They have their masters, and they do the bidding of those masters. They are naught but angels, Konrad. They are not gods or Demi-gods, nor are they great arch-angels. Ashmodel is of the order of Cherubim who once guarded the gates of Eden. Abaddon is a guardian of the Abyss, placed over Satan himself, by the most High Creator. And Lord Lucifer, Prince of the Morning Star, is but a servant of God. A little violent perhaps, at times, but he has a beautiful singing voice. You have heard him adoring the child. Surely you know enough to understand that all things change in their seasons. Men of short lives may live out one life as a thief and another as a priest, but the immortals must change with their seasons. Some seasons are times of wrath and hatred and war and bloodshed while other seasons are meant for growing and birth and songs of joy. Abaddon cannot change his nature, but he can change his mission as directed by his masters. He came to plead intercession for your old friend whom you have wrongly clapped in irons. Does your heart not ache to reconcile your differences with Ernst Schweikert? Did he not once serve you as a servant faithful as any hound? Loyal as the rivers to the sea? Did he not worship you?”

Konrad stopped in his tracks.

“What do you know of it?” The dark Knight turned on the diminutive Ramsay.

“I know that if I had such a friend, I would make every effort to keep him by my side,” the King told him evenly. “Friends are rare commodities, Konrad von Hetz, Knight of the Apocalypse
who sees
. Do you not see
anything
at all?”

Chapter Twelve of Twelve

Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place; that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?

Mark Andrew was quickly taken aside by Sir Barry of Sussex after the Queen and her Boggans had disappeared.

“Brother,” he spoke in a low voice. “The Master sits beside his son’s bed, waiting for him to wake. He sent me to bid you come to him… if you will.”

Mark nodded and looked around the brightly lit meadow. His sister had certainly outdone herself this time. The meadow was almost identical to the meadow that stretched out west of his own estate in Lothian. There was no doubt in his mind where she had gotten the idea for the place. Even the tree line seemed familiar. He half expected to see the old cairn where he’d once listened on lonely nights to the sounds of the elven music. So much beauty had been lost in the world. He almost wished to take this place from her and stay here himself, but he had news for her.

Their father was loose in the world and they would need to be on guard. Mark Andrew had never known his father… at least, not personally and the stories and legends led him to believe that he had missed very little of value. Even Marduk had seen fit to consign Anu to oblivion, locking him in stone for eons upon eons and had not the mighty Lords who served the Creator given Marduk the means wherewithal to vanquish the great Anu? What the elder god might do was beyond imagination. To think that he might leave this world and go about his own business was wishful thinking. The world would revert once again to barbarism and the time line would begin again. The new humanity would need leaders, strong teachers to carry them through the new age. Strong teachers, but men. Men were what they needed. Not gods and Demi-gods.

Men like Lucio and Louis and Barry of Sussex, but what of Simon? What of Lavon de Bleu and Konrad von Hetz? Where did they fit in now? They were denizens of the past. Their time was over and yet… they lived on. His first priority would be seeing to it that the Nephilim had a place in the cosmos. He had helped to create them, he would not abandon them and Ereshkigal would be obliged to help them as well since several of them were her own doing. A surrealistic game of cricket was in progress on the grass in front of the black and yellow pavilion. Several of Simon’s sons were playing an oddly matched game against a number of Il Dolce Mio’s elves, led by Armand de Bleu. At least he would not have to worry about the elves or Armand for the time being. Their kingdom was intact. It was only a matter of getting them back there.

“This way, Brother,” Sir Barry started off under the trees in the same general direction as the Queen had taken.

Soon they were in rocky terrain and very soon afterwards he found himself in the dark tunnels more indicative of where they actually were. Simon was in a small chamber directly off the Queen’s boudoir. They exited the tunnel on a ledge high above the Queen’s chambers. Below him was the Boggans’ central fire pit of the and the Queen’s familiar bower. There he saw the Queen with Ashmodel and Lucifer. Abaddon lay on the stone bed while Inanna sat weeping silently under the crystal flowers. Nothing and everything changed. Only Nergal looked up at him when he stood for a moment looking down at the familiar scene. Nergal did not speak or acknowledge his presence though he saw him clearly. The Lord of the Fifth Gate had no use for Adar. He would have to go through Nergal to get to Ereshkigal, but it would not be a problem. He stepped into the small cavern.

Simon was sleeping on a bed made of cushions and animal skins. Products of the Boggans’ hunts and scavenges. The torches burning in the wall sconces produced a ruddy glow. Lydia was there as were Reuben and Simeon, Simon’s two eldest sons. Carlisle Corrigan rose stiffly when Barry and Mark Andrew entered the room. Edgard remained seated on a foot stool made of stone.