The Centaur (15 page)

Kneeling on one knee in the center of the pentacle, he raised his open hands to the night and began the invocation of the seventh name of Marduk.

“
I invoke you, great gods of the night. I call to the night, to the cloaked woman of the evening star and the morning star and the dark of night. Ye who have enchanted me. By your magick you have bound me. The gods and goddesses mourn me for I am lost.
”

He lowered his hands and wiped some of the blood from the wound onto a piece of clean parchment paper and placed it in the censor with the burning incense and cedar wood.

“
Seek ye here to the aroma of my blood. The blood of the race of the vanished Annunaki, the blood of the race of the ancient ones of Atlantis, the blood of the race of the ancient Hebrews, chosen of God and blessed by the angels. To thee I give my blood as a sign and a covenant between us, as a binding smoke that cannot be resisted. Spirit of Asara, hear me. I call thee. I invoke thee. I command thee come to my circle and receive thy gift of which thou cannot refuse. Spirit of the race of the Watchers, bound to the Elder gods, I call upon thee and bind thee to my service by these gifts and this sacrifice
.” He spoke quickly and raised his voice toward the end of the summons.

Mark stood carefully and looked around with some measure of trepidation. The atmosphere around the circle had changed. The wind had died abruptly and there were no sounds. It was as if he was suddenly placed inside an insulated capsule. The dead grasses in the meadow continued to bow before the wind, but the wind no longer brushed his bare skin, nor did his hair flutter about his face. The silver ornaments in his hair hung perfectly still, and he could hear the beating of his own heart. For a few elongated seconds, he thought his spell had failed for some reason, but what happened next left his knees as weak as water, and his heart seemed to flutter in his chest before catching and then racing ahead.

A form of hideous proportions appeared near the north Cardinal point of his circle. Inhuman in size and shape, yet covered with recognizably human features: arms, legs, hands, feet, ears, eyes, mouths, teeth. But in no way was it human as these features seemed randomly placed about its length and breadth, and it writhed upon the ground as if in great pain or anger, roaring, screaming, whining and screeching in unintelligible words with demonic voices. It seemed it would crash through his circle and grab him with dozens of clawed hands, but the circle was an invisible barrier, and it could not reach him.

Mark placed one hand against his chest and tried to
will his heart to be still. The thing was horrible to look upon, oozing blood and other foul fluids from countless orifices. To make the terror complete, hundreds of tongues protruded from the mouths, forked, black and serpentine.

This was not the spirit of
Asara wielder of the flaming sword, watcher of the seventh power, but some nasty diversion. He drew a deep breath and began the banishment.

“
I know the form of the sorcerer and the sorceress and the sight of my enchanter and enchantress!
” His heart raced as the creature continued to shriek and scream curses in a hundred different languages, modern and ancient. “
May the watches of the cosmos dissolve this evil devilry. May these hideous mouths turn to wax and their tongues become as honey. The curses they utter are profane in the sight of God. May it melt like wax in the brazier. May the danger drain away like water. This work is destroyed. This spell is broken. Be gone, spirit of evil. Illusion of illusions! So mote it be!
”

The thing squirmed and wriggled on the ground until it finally dissolved into a sickly yellow liquid that quickly dried up to nothing on the bare ground outside the circle.

Mark wiped the sweat from his clammy forehead with the back of his hand and repeated the invocation of the seventh name of power. The drain on his energy was already making itself known and he had barely begun the work of the night.

When the invocation was repeated, the results were much more satisfactory, though hardly easy.

The spirit of Asara came to his circle under great protest. The powerful entity was clothed in a long-sleeved, loose robe that reached the ground. His head was covered by a deep hood and in his hand was the magnificent flaming sword. Its twisted golden blade glinted in the light of the small fire. The spirit approached the circle hesitantly, and then walked completely around it from north to west to south to east and back to the north, seemingly sizing up the sorcerer, inspecting the gift of sacrifice.

“
Specter of wonder, I command thee by thy word, Malanar! Malanar! Malanar!
”

The specter pressed his hands over the hooded ears and howled in rage.

“No, sorcerer! Get thee back to thy bed and leave this place! I know thee! Thinkest thou I had forgotten thee?” The specter answered him from within the hood. The voice was extremely familiar, neither ghostly hollow, nor demonically harsh, but the voice, it seemed of a man.

“Show me your face, Asar.” Mark commanded him. “I am the master here and you are the servant at my circle. Show me your face.” It was with extreme regret that Mark commanded this thing of the specter. He had to know and yet did not want to know.

The power of the seventh name of Marduk stabbed the golden sword in the earth and then pushed back his hood.

Mark almost fainted with relief. Instead of the mirror image he expected to see, this form was very pale. The hair was long and white. The blue eyes brilliant, illumined by an inner fire.

“What is it you would command, Master?” Asar’s voice dripped with contempt. “The secret word have you spoken, the secret name have you called, the proper binding has been followed. What will you have before you allow me to go on my way? There is much work to be done.”

“I would have the sword.” Mark told him and stood his ground, expecting an outburst.

The spirit stood motionless for several seconds before falling onto its knees. It held up its hands in supplication as one might do in desperation.

“I beg thee master do not take my sword again. Have your pretty cherubs lost their blade? Let them find their own way, I beg you. Ages upon ages I have labored to forge another. Get thee gone, Angel of Darkness! How can I defend myself and your pitiful bands against the powers of darkness if you take my blade?” His voice was soothing, almost mesmerizing.

“I have given thee a new blade in turn,” Mark Andrew pointed to the silver sword inside his circle.

“Place it in my hand, master, that I might appreciate it.” The specter’s movements were inhuman, serpentine and made Mark’s stomach queasy. “Ahhhh, master this is no sword of metal forged in the fires of the Abyss. You would cheat Asar with such worthless offal. Hand it up to me, master and let me feel its power.”

“You will not trick me, Spirit of Darkness. I will not fall into your hands. When I am gone from this place, you may claim your gift.”

“No! I beg of you! Have mercy on this pitiful creature. This humble servant. With what shall I guard the gates if left without a weapon? Your metal is strange to me, master. Whence
comest this form?”

“It was forged by men in fire of unnatural proportions, folded many thousands of times by the master swordsmen of the east. The hilt is of the same steel, overlaid with fine silver and gold. You have failed in your duties!” Mark could show no pity though he felt it. “You have slept while the gates have grown thin and disabled. Your charges roam the face of the earth at will.”

“It was none of my doing.” The specter objected, but its will was weakening.

“Pass your sword through the barrier.” Mark commanded.

Asara pulled the flaming sword from the ground and then passed the hilt through the plane of the outer circle.

“Place it on the ground.”

The spirit complied.

“You will wait on the boundaries of this circle until all is done and then you may take your gift.” Mark wiped again at the beads of perspiration forming on his neck and forehead. The wind was still blowing outside the protective ring, even ruffling the robe of the visitor, but though the air was chill there was no wind inside the circle. The force emanating from the spirit was almost physical and his nearness was devastating to the inexperienced sorcerer.

“Be gone now, before I change my mind!” Mark raised his voice a bit when the spirit tarried.

“I will go but not before placing a curse upon you. Keep your manmade metals, Uriel! I will have no use for such rot where I am going. May you and your kind fall headlong into the foulest pits of perdition.”

“Be gone then!” Mark was becoming aggravated with the apparition. He pulled the golden sword into the circle and hefted it in his hands. It was much heavier than the silver one. He drew it back over his right shoulder, took a small step forward, dipped slightly and brought the sword completely around, slicing the gold and silver hilt from the silver blade, leaving it singing in its place.

The spirit vanished without further ceremony.

Mark collapsed onto the barren ground and held his head in his hands for several minutes, collecting his wits and his power, again, trying to still his pounding heart.  This conjuration work was much worse than he had expected. After resting for a bit, he put the golden sword in his own scabbard and stood up. Time was advancing rapidly and he had more work to do before the stroke of midnight. And his next conjuration was an even more imposing power. He intended to call several of the powers of Marduk in succession. A very dangerous operation. Very risky. These things were generally done one at a time, and then only in times of great need and spaced widely apart. Time, unfortunately, had turned on him.

the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries,

and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.

The conjurations continued. Mark would have looked much like a man who had suffered in the desert for a week or more without food or water except for the cold rain that pelted him. The protective circle had shielded him from the weather outside the perimeter while his magick had been strong, but now he was having a very hard time. He slumped on the ground in the middle of the circle, barely able to hold his face up out of the dirt. The rain had come, and he was soaked to the bone and cold, shivering in only the black cargo pants. No boots or shoes, no socks, but he had no time to waste recuperating.

The news he had gleaned from the invocation of one of the powers and had affirmed his worst fears. The Centaur would break up and the great mountains of rock headed for the earth’s surface would impact in a scattered pattern across the entire northern hemisphere, devastating the entire surface of the earth with the possible exception of Antarctica. He would have to continue the work well into the wee hours of the morning, if he expected to finish this most terrible labor.

Raising his head with the greatest effort, he scanned the horizon as the green bolts of the unnatural storm lit up the roiling clouds in the sky. The trees swayed under the onslaught of the storm, but he could see no approaching dangers from the woods. He climbed to his feet wearily and wiped his wet hair from his face. The censor was still burning in spite of the rain. Whoever had designed it had planned to use in just such weather. Working quickly, he raised the lid just a bit and tossed in a handful of wet frankincense nuggets. The smoke struggled to rise in the moisture-laden air and he struggled to breathe some of it in, refreshing himself temporarily, at least, in the aromatic wisps. He longed for a deep drink of the elven honey mead that Il Dolce Mio had supplied them with on the trip home. Instead he turned his face up to the angry heavens and drank of the rain.

Next he would conjure Nebrukur, the Forty-Ninth Power of Lord Marduk. This was his best hope for averting the disaster heading toward them. He clutched the necklace from which dangled the Spear of Longinus around his neck and stabbed the blade into the ground in the northwest quadrant. This holy relic would be his point of barter with the spirit. He knew better than to expect something for nothing. The spear had pierced the side of Jesus as he hung from the cross and was his most valuable possession. The crystal skull was ruined, lying in two very neat pieces in a velvet lined box in the attic. It no longer glowed, nor did it exude any of the powerful energy it had possessed before Urim and Thummin had ‘opened it’. Mark shuddered even deeper at the thought of what might have occurred in the basement when these two very peculiar spirits had tampered with the Skull of Sidon.

More puzzling still were his own particular circumstances. He had found himself seemingly split in twain. As far as he could tell, nothing had changed
physically; he still looked the same, but he didn’t feel the same anymore. He vaguely remembered a visit from Paddy Puffingtowne, the gregarious clurichaun and something about being ‘born again’ or ‘born anew’. Vague memories of falling through a starry, velvet night and a long, long slumber from, which he could not wake. These were mixed with brilliant new memories of Sophia and of things he felt more than thought and heard more than said and saw more than understood. Mental images about things wherein he was a participant, yet at the same time, he was not a participant. Great battles, dragons and monsters. Wars and misery and more wars and misery, followed by long periods of gray loneliness and a longing to return home, but not knowing where home was.