Revelations

Excerpt

Revelations
Mary Eicher © 2021
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

The absence of a single speck of light in the night sky was hardly a catastrophe. Except to Dr. Wolfgang Strang. Mystified, the astrophysicist removed his reading glasses and rubbed his temples. Objects, even unexplained objects, did not simply vanish. Suspicious of the sterile numeric data, Strang set it aside and stepped into the yard to inspect the cosmos with his own eyes. The “great river,” as the Inca had called the Milky Way, floated serene and seemingly unchanged in the southern sky. But to Strang the universe was regrettably diminished, and he felt the loss deep in his soul.

“Stargazing, Wolf?”

Strang turned to find a tall, slender figure emerging from the shadows. “No, my dear. I am merely looking for an old friend.”

He flashed a self-deprecating smile and accepted an affectionate hug in response. The astrophysicist offered his arm to his companion and noted how well moonlight suited her. The pale rays illuminated Artemis’s ebony tresses and lent a violet cast to her pale, intelligent eyes. “What causes your noctambulant wanderings this night, Temmie?”

Artemis closed her fingers about his arm and gently nudged him to walk with her. “You know me, Wolf. I came to commune with the moon as usual.”

Strang chuckled. “Ah yes. Artemis and the moon are legendary companions.”

Echoing the small laugh, Artemis glanced at her friend, noting how the light deepened the lines at his eyes and accentuated the folds on his bristled cheeks. Strang was looking older of late, as if he were struggling with a burden grown too heavy.

“What is it, Wolf?” she asked, pausing their leisurely stroll.

“The object has vanished.” Strang motioned to the lower edge of the Milky Way. There, amid a plethora of unnamed bits of light, a single object had captivated him seventeen years ago. It was the birth star marking the moment the Harbinger had awakened and reality had vaulted into chaos.

Artemis glanced at the familiar stellar formation Strang was indicating and shook her head. “You can’t possibly tell just by looking, Wolf. Perhaps it has merely dimmed once again.”

Strang patted her arm. “No, no. My darling girl, I realized the object has never been visible to the human eye. I am referring to the latest information from the observatory. I assure you there is no mistake. The object is no longer there.”

A chill skittered down Artemis’s spine. She had not expected a sign. The question of the Harbinger’s purpose had faded over the years. A generation endowed with precognition had reached maturity. Gifted. Blessed. Awakened with the ability to foresee events. To most, the Harbinger was considered an evolutionary gift to the human race. And Artemis had chosen to merely let it be. Allowing herself to cease the quest to understand the reason behind the Harbinger, she had put away her suspicions for a decade.

She could feel apprehension in Strang as well. He shared her concern, she knew, just as it had been with the Harbinger’s mysterious awakening, the object’s sudden disappearance presaged an approaching danger.

Artemis closed her eyes and willed a nascent panic to subside. Taking a calming breath, she lifted now darkened eyes to Strang and whispered, “Then it has begun.”

*

Lucy scrolled listlessly through page after page of unappealing items for sale, finding nothing remotely suitable for Strang’s sixtieth birthday. He was a man of few needs and even fewer wants, content to spend his time exploring distant worlds seeking to understand the purpose of existence.

“Okay, I’m stuck,” she told Artemis with a sigh. “What does he like? I mean, I know it’s impossible we don’t know what he likes. Wolf has been a member of the family for nearly two decades, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard him express a desire for anything.”

Artemis plopped a pile of freshly dried clothes on the bed and nodded. “He has everything he needs.”

“Which is exactly how many Hawaiian shirts anyway?” Lucy joked, watching her partner walk to the closet. “He has one suit, not that he ever wears it. I can’t imagine he’d know what to do with a tie. What would tickle his fancy?”

“I doubt he has a fancy!” Artemis grabbed a handful of hangers and headed back to the bed where Lucy sat fiddling with the laptop.

Lucy groaned. “You know what I mean.”

Artemis shrugged. “He once said he used to shop for useless things. Let’s get him something useless.”

Lucy ran her fingers through her light-brown bangs and threw a smirk at Artemis. “Yeah, that’ll work. I’m sure there’s a category of useless things just for astrophysicists. There are dozens of knickknacks all over his bungalow. Not! Wolf has his books and his computer and Willa’s urn. That’s it.”

“Maybe we should give him a medal for putting up with us all these years.” Artemis offered, voicing the first thing to pop into her head. “Here, go to collectibles.” She reached past Lucy and tapped a few keys on the laptop and then returned to folding clothes.

“How about this?” Lucy asked, enlarging an item on the screen. “It only costs a million dollars. Bet they’ll take nine hundred thou give or take.”

“Hum?” Artemis tossed aside a pair of stonewashed jeans and leaned over Lucy for a better look. “How did you find this?” she asked, rotating the laptop toward her.

“Hey!” Lucy complained. “I didn’t find it. It just appeared. You’re the one who touched the keyboard, not me.”

Artemis picked up the laptop and examined the photograph of a smooth metal disk measuring three inches in diameter with a symbol expertly engraved on its face. “Says it’s made of platinum and look here. It was just listed a few seconds ago.”

“What’s that symbol on it?” Lucy put her chin on Artemis’s shoulder and leaned forward for a peek. “Some sort of weird yin-yang?”

Artemis set the laptop on the desk so they could both see it. “It’s the Taijitu, part of the supreme polarity. No, wait. This one looks like a version attributed to Zhao Huiqian.” She traced the symbol slowly with her eyes. “Actually, it’s even older than that. This rendering is quite ancient. It’s found in cultures throughout the uni…ah, all over the world.”

Lucy caught the abrupt verbal redirection and stared quizzically at her partner. Artemis merely shrugged, leaving Lucy to file the slip of the tongue away with the scores of other unexplained phrases her soulmate had used over the years.

The screen abruptly went blank. Artemis cuffed the laptop on the side to restore the image, but it did not reappear. Scrolling up and down, she could find no indication the item had ever been there. “What the hell?”

Repeating the actions yielded the same result. “That is odd. An item typically stays up even after it’s sold, until the transaction is completed. But it couldn’t have happened that fast!” She stared at Artemis. “Did you see who posted it?”

Artemis closed her eyes and tried to recall details of what she’d seen on the screen. “No. It said something about a dealer in London. Hanover Street, I think. Here, let me have the laptop. I’ll see if I can identify a source.”

Lucy handed her the computer and took over the task of folding clothes. “I cannot believe it got sold so fast. Who has a million dollars to spend on something like that?” She poked Artemis in the ribs. “Besides you, that is.”

“Uh.” Artemis grunted, completely absorbed in following the code she was trying to hack. It was pointless. The item had never appeared, according to the first hack she tried. The disk was worth every penny if it was what she suspected. It was priceless, and it possessed a power capable of unspeakable evil. The dread she had felt with Strang took a giant stride forward.

She turned to Lucy. “We must find that disk.”

*

Raphael Berticelli ran his hand down his spotless white cassock and savored the smoothness of the fine wool. He had worn the papal garment for three months since the College of Cardinals had selected him to lead a half a billion Catholics to the Kingdom of Heaven. A perilous journey given the times. Never had heaven seemed quite so distant, with conflict and hatred growing ever more prevalent in the world.

Raphael brushed his fingers along a slumbering rhododendron and envisioned the riot of lavender-blue spring flowers that would bloom in a few weeks. He shared the bush’s impatience. Raphael, too, was eager to fulfill his purpose. The seeds of ambition were germinating in his soul. As pope, Raphael had chosen the name Peter, demonstrating a self-importance the earlier pontiffs, indeed he himself, had once eschewed. But the name had appealed to him for a reason. Like the original Peter, Raphael was destined for greatness.

Pope Peter II was blessed beyond normal men. He felt beneath his rochet for the object to which he attributed his heady climb to power.

“There you are!” Raphael grinned at the slender metal disk shimmering in the yellow morning light. He pressed the disk between his hands, finding comfort in the object’s warmth. The disk was his constant companion; it centered him in an uncertain world. It guided his thoughts and had brought him to the pinnacle of power.

Hearing the church bells marking the hour, Raphael slipped the disk into a pocket above his heart and headed back to his private chapel to say mass. He took off the pectoral cross and unbuttoned the mozzetta. Then he reached for the heavy vestment that had been laid out for him and hesitated. Retrieving the disk, the pontiff reluctantly set it aside. Pope Peter II considered the object a thing apart from his religious duties and thought it best not to combine the object with the ritual of the transubstantiation. Mystery upon mystery was too much even for a pope to contemplate.

When the mass was completed, Raphael returned to the papal apartment to begin the day’s work. The sound of chanting carried up from the courtyard below. Raphael opened a window near his desk, inviting the soothing Gregorian chant into the small room. There had been similar chanting when he’d first encountered the disk, and a memory flooded back.

He recalled seeing it among Benedictus’s belongings one evening after serving the pontiff his supper. Raphael, merely a monsignor in service to Pope Benedictus at the time, had found the disk in a drawer. He had picked it up and traced the symbol on its face, enthralled by the disk’s smooth, hypnotic feel.

Shortly thereafter, Pope Benedictus had fallen ill. Could it really be eleven years? Raphael wondered, remembering the morning he had found Benedictus stricken in bed, his body barely functional and his mind confused. Monsignor Berticelli had spent those years caring for the shell of a man Benedictus had become. He had concealed the depth of the pontiff’s mental deterioration, seeing personally to the various documents and decrees the Vatican required. Given the looming scandal, the Vatican was eager to conceal Benedictus’s growing incapacitation from the public. What was assumed to be a brief period of convalescence had, however, stretched into years. Trapped by an initial lie no matter how rightly intended, the cardinals kept the secret of Benedictus’s condition and permitted Raphael to fill the void. The disk had guided his way.

At its bidding, Raphael had used the opportunity to elevate himself to cardinal. Then the disk had spoken to Raphael again one evening while he bathed the feeble body of the pontiff, listening as the pope prattled on unintelligibly about the Harbinger and the children he had sought once to destroy. Carefully placing Benedictus back in the papal bed, Raphael had gently folded the blankets about the man and waited for him to sleep. Then, moving his arm in blessing, Raphael had taken a pillow and pressed it over Benedictus’s wizened face.

Within weeks the disk had made Raphael the new pope as reward for his obedience. Raphael shut the window. The Gregorian chant concluded, he went to his desk and straightened the picture taken the day of his selection. He liked the photograph. It captured his essence. He had been elected on the second ballot by the trapped and undoubtedly wary princes of the Holy Roman Church.

More powerful than a relic and more blessed to him than any ritual he might be called upon to perform, the disk was the new pope’s talisman. Now it required him to perform a third task, one very different from the others. The music had come to him as he slept and with it the intention of offering the soothing sounds to the world.

He withdrew a sheaf of paper and began to mark the notes so familiar to his inner ears. Note by note, Raphael recorded the melody he perceived coming from the disk. He would have the choir record them once he had put words to the notes, words that spoke of peace and fraternity and love of the one true messenger of creation.

*

Angela Breem looked at the souvenir and set it aside. She didn’t like it. More than that, the cheap aluminum disk made her uncomfortable. The work crew had given it to her in appreciation of her kindness, or so they said. The other archeologists were tougher on the workmen. Angie found such behavior ridiculously shortsighted. The workers labored in the stifling heat day after day, and it had been more than a year since they had found anything to merit praise for their efforts.

Her cell phone chirped, and she smiled, hearing her mother’s voice.

“I’m fine, Mom,” Angie replied, stepping back into her tent and out of the bright sun. “How are you and Temmie?”

Lucy gave her daughter the whole rundown on Artemis’s latest quest. Angie took a few sips of water as she listened and felt something stir in the back of her mind.

“A disk, you say, with a taijitu on it?” Angie put aside the bottle of water. “It was probably a souvenir, Mom. They’re all over the place here. My work crew gave me something similar yesterday. It had a different design on. A rather crude yin-yang, not a taijitu, and it was painted, not etched. The back had a blessing written in Arabic. Tell Temmie it’s just a trinket and not to pay a million dollars for it. I can get her one for ten bucks.” She heard her mother chuckle. “Listen, Mom. I’ll tell her myself. Is she there?”

Lucy told her Artemis had gone into town. The pressure in Angie’s head ceased. Lucy launched an update on Strang’s birthday and how he’d loved the card. Angie could imagine the look on his face. He was a kind and noble man, and she was happy he had been pleased. Then Lucy proceeded with the purpose of the call. She described Artemis’s agitation and belief someone or something was interfering with humans. Angie closed her eyes as she listened. Lucy sounded very concerned. And Angie wanted to know more, but a knock on the tent frame called her attention. The crew was waiting to be briefed on the day’s assignment.

“Ah, hey, Mom, I’ve got to go. Text me the details and I’ll get back to you. Please tell everyone I said hello. And assure Temmie I will help in any way I can.”

The last part tumbled out without her consent. The words just asserted themselves unbeckoned. Angie felt a momentary pain in her temples and then the sensation vanished. She put away the phone and went out into the Egyptian heat to give her crew directives for the day. She would send them to a new area, one that had suddenly popped to mind.

*

The universe reveals itself if one listens. Beneath the harsh cacophony of daily life there is a constant to which one clings often without noticing. This was the sound Artemis heard clearly urging her to take the action she alone could perform. The goddess of the hunt, so long satisfied with a life free of conflict, cocooned in the warmth of her lover’s arms, knew her time of refuge was over.

The list of candidates had dwindled over the decade since Artemis had created it. She had started with twenty children scoured from the millions who had purchased the game she had converted from the diabolical one the cult had created. The original app had been used to identify children with highly developed precognitive skills and eliminate them. Artemis had done away with the cult who developed it. But she had recognized how useful the game would be in identifying the Harbinger children the world would need.

The then-adolescents played a game requiring them to choose between paths and weapons to reach a castle. The game was harmless other than being somewhat addictive. And it had been successful, giving Artemis access to the most talented of the precognitive kids throughout the world.

Once they were identified, Artemis had ensured their development. An unseen benefactor, she had provided scholarships and entry into universities. She had monitored their progress without their knowledge, and she had watched them mature. Some she had had to rescue from circumstances that might have ruined their lives. Several had fallen victim to the vagaries of life despite her best efforts. The majority had disappeared into quiet, normal lives. And a few had failed to live up to their talents. Two had died.

Checking which of the children, now young adults like Lucy’s daughter Angie, remained, Artemis found only six suited to her needs. And of those only three or four had studied the subject matter which would be required. She examined the file for each remaining candidate and entered their addresses on the form letters she had prepared.

Each of them would be offered a lucrative job as her assistant. The work would be challenging and important; far beyond what they would find on the open market. Room and board would be provided. Artemis intended those who accepted the position to stay at her mansion where she could participate and encourage them. She could not do the work for them. The gift of the Harbinger, like the decision they would ultimately be called to make, belonged to them. If Artemis was correct about what was about to transpire.

Noting the current situation of each candidate, Artemis prepared supportive letters that would facilitate their ability to accept her offer for an interview. She reviewed her work and drove to town to mail the letters. On her way back, she rehearsed several ways to break the news to Lucy. They were about to forfeit their comfortable, secluded life.

“Lucy’s going to freak,” she exclaimed when she realized none of the explanations were adequate to the task.