Four Dominions Read online

  “So this is where in the Levant we’re headed,” Yeats said softly, as his gaze bored deep into the contour map Conrad had opened. This was not a map printed on any press. It was clearly hand-drawn by a knowledgeable and meticulous hand. Picking up on this, WBY said in the tone one uses in a church, Protestant or Catholic, “How old is this?”

  “We still lack the means to pin it down to a year,” Conrad said, happily observing his friend’s rapt face; this was precisely the reaction he had been hoping for. “What we can say with reasonable certainty is it was drawn sometime in the fourteenth century.” He pointed to one corner of the map. “You see here, though faint, this is the seal of Orhan, son of Osman the First, the founder of the Empire. He reigned as sultan from 1326 to 1362, as the Ottoman Empire rapidly expanded its territory east and north.”

  “But this is a map of Ethiopia and Eritrea,” Yeats said.

  “At the farthest reaches of the Empire, in those early Ottoman days, yes.” His forefinger stabbed out again. “We see the greatest concentration of detail in and around the town of Lalibela, in the north. There are numerous sacred sites in Ethiopia, but what makes this one different is that Lalibela is inhabited almost exclusively by Ethiopian Orthodox Christians. As you can see here, in the inset, the holy structures are laid out in a symbolic reproduction of those in Jerusalem. The country adopted Christianity very early on, historically dating back to the time of the Apostles.”

  Yeats lifted his gaze up. “Yes? And?”

  “From the configuration of these buildings it is irrefutable that a delegation of Ethiopians made its way to Jerusalem, there to pray and to meet with the Apostles or, at the very least, their representatives.” Conrad’s finger hovered over a particular cluster of stone buildings. “The incredible detail of the drawings argues that there was at least one architect in the delegation. Information has recently come into our possession that indicates historical scholars were also part of the delegation, and that they brought back from Jerusalem artifacts for safekeeping from the continually war-torn region.”

  “And you think they’re still there.”

  “No,” Conrad said with a slow smile. “I know they are. Including the Book of Deathly Things.”

  Yeats frowned, but beneath that was a growing desire, powerful as the sun breaching the eastern horizon. “What artifacts, precisely?” This was the way his mind worked. Details. Precision. Facts.

  Conrad shrugged. “They could be anything. But it seems to me that they would be extremely sacred, extremely valuable, containing hidden knowledge.” He rose up. “Perhaps even the whereabouts of King Solomon’s mines.”

  Yeats’s eyes opened wide. “Gold.”

  “Not just gold,” Conrad said. “If the legends are correct then a very special form of gold created by Solomon’s cadre of alchemists.”

  9

  Malta: Present Day

  BRAVO OPENED GLUEY EYELIDS, SAID, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING here? I saw you burst into flames.”

  Elias laughed, clearly relieved. “It wasn’t that kind of fire.”

  Above him the parachute roof fluttered and billowed like a sail. The sun had already left the sky. A cool breeze had risen, bringing with it the scents of the sea, the calls of the gulls. A gas lamp was on, casting a fitful circle of pale yellow.

  Bravo’s brows knit together. “You’re not even burnt. What kind of fire was it?”

  Wetting a cloth in a bowl of beaten brass, he wiped away the crust from Bravo’s eyelids and lips.

  Elias shrugged. “From what I’ve seen you’re the one with expertise in these matters.”

  Bravo looked up at him. “Have you been taking care of me all by yourself?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I.” Elias cupped one hand behind Bravo’s head, lifting it so Bravo could sip some tepid water. “Not too much. I know you’re parched, but a little at a time is better than it all coming up at once.”

  When he laid Bravo’s head back down. Bravo thanked him. “How many days?”

  “About a week,” Elias said. “Give or take.”

  Bravo closed his eyes for a moment. “Jesus.”

  Elias’s expression was eager. “Maybe you can help me with something.”

  “Anything.” Bravo tried for a smile; it was grimmer than he had aimed for. “But I’m not in much of a position to help you.”

  “Let me tell my story,” Elias said, “then decide.” He settled himself more comfortably on his hams. “The night after my father was burned to death here in this castle, I cried myself to sleep. Not surprising, but that part’s beside the point. It’s my dream. I can’t get it out of my head.”

  “Tell me,” Bravo said, his senses abruptly on high alert.

  “Okay, well, I was somewhere in the countryside—not Malta—there was a cool breeze on my face. I was sitting in dappled sunlight, leaning against the trunk of a huge apple tree. All of a sudden a deeper shadow crossed over me. I looked up and saw—well, maybe it was a man, but maybe it was something else; I don’t know. It didn’t move like a man, but it smiled at me like a man would.”

  Heart hammering in his chest, Bravo was forced to interrupt. “What did this man look like?”

  “Well, that’s the funny thing.” Elias appeared to be concentrating hard. “You know how dreams are. People are there and they’re not.”

  “Was it like that?”

  “I dunno. Maybe it was like... hmm...” Elias pulled at his lower lip. “Maybe it was more like I was seeing him through water, like he was drowned, like he lived in another... place. But then dreams are another place, aren’t they.”

  Sweat was breaking out all over Bravo’s body. He felt himself trembling. Could Elias have encountered the specter of Bravo’s grandfather, who had been buried beneath the apple tree on the Shaws’ Sussex estate?

  “He smiled at you, and then what happened?”

  “It was the strangest thing,” Elias said. “He plucked an apple from the tree and handed it to me. It was a perfect apple, shiny and red and ripe. I could smell it, not just with my nose but with my whole body.” His eyes were beseeching. “Does that make sense?”

  “Perfect sense,” Bravo said.

  “I held the apple in the palm of my hand.” Elias seemed in a state of semi-trance. “I can still feel its weight. It was so perfect, you know?”

  Bravo, in fact, did, but he didn’t dare break the spell that had come over the boy. Suddenly all his aches and pains began to fade away as he concentrated on the boy’s dream.

  “Then this man who was drowned said to me, ‘Eat it, Elias. Eat the whole apple.’ ” He frowned, his eyes still slightly out of focus. “He knew my name. I don’t know how... but it was just a dream, right?”

  Again Bravo was afraid to break Elias’s train of remembrance.

  Perhaps the boy hadn’t expected an answer, for he went right on. “The apple was so perfect. I didn’t want to destroy it. I mean, how many things are perfect in this world? But I wasn’t in this world, was I? I was somewhere else. And the scent was so strong. My mouth began to water, and the drowned man said, ‘Elias, eat.’ And so I did, the tart-sweet flesh, the juice running down my chin, my fingers sticky with it. I just kept eating, core and all. And when it was gone so was the drowned man.”

  Elias’s eyes cleared, and he was staring down at Bravo. “What does it mean, my dream? Why can’t I get it out of my head?”

  Bravo shook his head, but somewhere deep inside him stirred the shadow of a memory, which made him think he ought to know why, but this vexing train of thought was snapped by the loudening thwup-thwup-thwup of a helicopter slinging through the sky. A powerful searchlight tore apart the darkness, and then the helicopter was descending onto the tarmac of the ruined castle’s heliport.

  *

  EVER SINCE she had come in sight of the burnt castle Ayla had been in a quandary as to what to do. Of Bravo and Emma there was no sign, and she interpreted this as omino
us. Hunkering down for hours behind a bulwark of projecting rocks with a pair of binoculars, she surveilled the immediate vicinity without success. Late in the afternoon, a slender boy came into view, picking his way through the rubble, arms loaded. The boy was the only human being visible in the acreage. If any Knight patrols existed they were exceptionally well hidden, and this was what worried her. She felt inadequate to whatever force had captured or—she shivered—God forbid, killed Bravo and Emma. She followed the boy with her binoculars, scuttling between rocks to keep him in view, saw that he was stocking supplies for his makeshift home in one of the castle’s rooms. Inching closer, she could see a figure laid out on what might be a cot. She decided to take a risk, moving closer still until she could make out the figure’s face. Her pulse skyrocketed. Bravo! No sign of Emma, but Bravo was clearly hurt. With that, she came to the conclusion that she needed help.

  Her first thought was to contact the Gnostic Observatines in Addis Ababa, where she had been working, but instinct warned her against this course of action. There had to be a good reason why Bravo had deliberately not told anyone but her where he and Emma were going. She therefore felt bound to keep that secret. Besides, Addis Ababa was too far away. She needed help closer to hand.

  She decided to retreat back to Valletta, a city whose sixteenth-century Baroque structure owed much to the Knights, who had headquartered there for centuries. In the great siege of 1565 the Fort of St. Elmo had finally fallen to the Ottoman Empire, but a year later it was retaken by the Knights with the help of reinforcements from Spain. The victorious Grand Master, Jean de Valette, set about building a fortified city, which would be better equipped to repel any and all future enemies.

  As Ayla drove at speed to Valletta, her mother approached her. She came most often wrapped in a dream, but in times of emergencies it seemed she couldn’t wait for her daughter to fall asleep. And yet in this alternate world it was nighttime. A full moon cast slanting beams through the car’s window. Dilara was the same silvery color as the moonlight; in fact, she seemed to have emerged from out of it.

  My darling, she said, you are in the wrong place.

  Ayla’s heart tumbled over, for she always listened to her dream-mother. You mean here, Malta? Or Valletta?

  Not a place you can see, Dilara said cryptically. You are in the twilight.

  Twilight?

  A dangerous place to be, Daughter. Then her mother turned toward something or someone she couldn’t see, shouted, Foul creature, that sought to destroy another Shaw!

  Bravo! But Ayla, listening intently to her mother’s tone, was terrified, for beneath the anger she recognized naked fear. In her experience, her mother was afraid of nothing—not Tannourine, not the red tent of shadows, not the fiend inside it, not even death. But here she was, fear oozing out of every pore of her liquidy body.

  They’re close now, Dilara said to her daughter. So very close.

  The terror rose exponentially in Ayla’s breast. She knew her mother was referring to the Fallen—the angels who accompanied Satan out of Heaven into the bowels of Hell. As a measure against this terror, she said, Mother, why didn’t you tell me who my real father was?

  Omar was your father. He brought you up. He loved you as his own flesh and blood.

  Why didn’t you tell me that Conrad Shaw was my birth father?

  To protect you.

  And yet you took me to Tannourine, into the red tent of shadows, into the presence of that... fiend.

  That was foreordained, Dilara said. I wasn’t given a choice.

  Wasn’t given a choice? By whom?

  But now her mother’s head lifted, her nostrils dilated, and her body tensed.

  Mother, what is it? What’s—?

  But Dilara was gone, along with the streams of moonlight. The afternoon, red as ox blood, was dying. Ayla pulled the manuscript in its case closer to her, as if something or someone was about to snatch it from her. She had come to feel attached to the thing, almost as if it were her child. But why not? she told herself. It was an invaluable artifact Bravo had entrusted to her. In the invisible script of its pages might be all the answers they were seeking to stop the Fallen in their tracks, beat them back to the Underworld where God had consigned them. She vowed to keep the manuscript safe at all costs.

  By the time she reached the city outskirts, dusk was beginning to fall. She was desperately craving a hot meal, a cool shower, and a comfortable bed in which to sink. But there was no time for that now. Her mother had made that quite clear.

  After three hours of hurrying through the streets, querying people, she settled on the local medivac. With a plaintive story and a fistful of cash, she was able to corral a team that was both sympathetic and venal enough to accept her offer.

  Fifteen minutes later, they were lifting off from Valletta, heading toward the Knights’ castle.

  10

  Paris: Present Day

  “GOD IN HEAVEN, HALLOWED BE THY NAME.”

  Lilith, making the sign of the cross, on her knees in front of the thing floating in formaldehyde, repeated this protective prayer over and over.

  Obarton, LED torch in hand, stood a pace behind her. An undertow of satisfaction swept through him. Having determined early on that Lilith Swan was an unstoppable force, that outright opposition would only lead to his demise, either figuratively or actually, he beat a tactical retreat while he sought another way to maintain his status in the Circle Council. Times change, he knew, and if you didn’t change with them you risked getting swept out with the trash. Witness Newell, Santiago, and Muller.

  “God in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

  Obarton was too old, too canny, too steeped in the philosophy of Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, the sixteenth-century founder of modern political science, to abandon the field of battle for long. Obarton had read Machiavelli’s seminal work, The Prince, so many times he had most of it memorized. Nevertheless, the words that affected him most deeply were from a letter the great statesman had written late in life, during his exile. I enter the ancient courts of rulers who have long since died. There, I am warmly welcomed, and I feed on the only food I find nourishing and was born to savor.

  In determining how to place Lilith under his control without either her knowledge or her consent, he embraced that idea. He consulted not only Prince Niccolò but also the rulers of the ancient courts who had succored him in his time of need.

  “God in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

  Like all solutions to seemingly imponderable questions the answer was right under his nose; Lilith had provided it herself. Her slavish devotion to God and the Church was a weakness Obarton was all too happy to exploit.

  Reaching out, he placed a hand on her shoulder, then gently lifted her up. She could not take her eyes from the floating thing, though now that Obarton had switched off the red light it looked as it had before, like a baby sleeping. He drank in the tremors racing through her body as if they were draughts of a fine wine.

  “Wh-what... what is that?” she stammered.

  “One of the Fallen,” Obarton said with theatrical gravity. “Dagon, to be exact.”

  “An archangel.”

  Obarton nodded soberly. “A terrible one, a dangerous one. One of the enemy who now seek to destroy us.”

  “How... ?” She gestured vaguely. “I mean, how did it get here?”

  “Why, we captured it, of course.” When she turned to him, he added, “Oh, not I nor any Knight still living. No, Dagon was captured centuries ago by a process that, alas, has been lost to us. Still, here it is, wings atrophied, adult body reversed through adolescence into this by the stasis in which it is kept.”

  He took Lilith by the shoulders, stared hard into her eyes. “Listen to me. I brought you here to show you this horror, so you could see for yourself what we’re up against, why you must turn your great powers toward the real enemy, one of which floats here, still dangerous even in captivity.” He gripped her more securely. “Do you believe me now?
”

  She nodded, still somewhat in shock at having faced one of the Fallen.

  “Good. Let us leave here now; the air has become befouled by that thing.” Guiding her gently up and out of the stone Reliquary, he returned them to the warm breath of daylight; the trees whispering in the breeze; the sunlight scattered by dancing leaves; the chirping of the birds; the soft whir of insects. Life!

  They went to a café a few blocks from the cemetery, where, after a double espresso, Obarton judiciously left her to stew in the ramifications of the shock he had provided. Anything he could say now would just undercut the effects of her experience. He judged there would be plenty of time for palaver when the full effect of the horror brought to her the reality they were all facing.

  *

  IN TRUTH, he wasn’t wrong. For the next twenty or so minutes following his departure Lilith sat transfixed, staring out the plate-glass window at the cobbled street. She saw none of the passersby, nor the vehicles, but only the horrifying face of Dagon as the Fallen Archangel leapt at her. His presence negated the laws by which she had lived her life, thoroughly undercut what she believed to be the nature of the world. That thing, that monstrosity, did not belong in thronged civilization, it couldn’t exist, and yet it did. The natural human reaction to a beast in its midst was to deny its existence. The more evidence of the beast’s existence, the greater the denials, the rationalization of which humanity was the uncontested master.

  She tried to apply her considerable will to shutting down all images, all thought, but it was no use. The image of Dagon continued to haunt her, as did Obarton. Despite his outright antagonism toward her, she had spared him from the purge for any number of reasons: the top three being he was an old hand from whom she could learn about governing the Knights, he had contacts both in the Vatican and in the lay world whom she could tap, he was clever. But now she wondered whether she had underestimated his power. Anyone who was the current jailor of an archangel of the Fallen was not to be toyed with. The balance of power, which she had believed to be firmly in her hands, had shifted like a dune in a sandstorm. Well, then, she supposed that she would have to bow to the inevitable. But first, as her personality dictated, she had to make doubly sure before she ceded the high ground.