Chapter 29
Tanit's Lair
"Excuse me, gentlemen," said Derek, "the is all quite intriguing, but I was under
the impression that you were interested in rockets... not archaeology." Outwardly, he
was maintaining his facade of Piers Myndertsen, but inwardly, the illusion was
crumbling.
Throughout the tour of the camp, he had felt Tanit's mind flitting in curiosity
around his own. Enmeshed in fatigue and distraction, it had been a grueling struggle to
keep her at a distance. But, now, in the bowels of her temple, he could feel the
goddess' overwhelming presence as she pushed against his consciousness. He was
beginning to suspect that his goose was cooked, as the saying went.
"Our lady wishes to meet you," said Patrick Murphy. The glassiness in his blue
eyes testified to the emptiness behind them.
"I hope she has my cash," the precept said with bravado. "Dollars or diamonds
are preferable, but I'll accept marks, yen, pounds, or even gold, though that's a bit
heavy.... I think I'll wait outside, if you don't mind... I find it a bit crowded in here."
Derek started toward the door, but found Faruz blocking his way with an Uzi aimed
at his stomach.
"You will wait here," the boy said tonelessly, leaving Derek with the impression
that he didn't understand a word that he had said... that he was parroting another's
thoughts. As the Irishman slipped by, Faruz backed out with his gun still leveled.
Tightly gripping the handle of his briefcase, Derek watched the door become a
solid rock wall overlaid with gilt. He turned to look at the golden pillars standing
outside the circle of flames that surrounded a low, golden altar. It was his vision at the
campfire. Even at the distance of several yards, he could feel the heat. He was
sweating... or was that nerves, he wondered. The precept took a deep breath and tried
to focus... to bolster the walls of his mental citadel, but he could feel Tanit's battering
ram and feel his own barricades tremble with weakness. God... he was tired.
Suddenly, his mind flicked to Kym... to her terror of the night before... and his
own promise... and Tanit was in.... "Your blood to mine... your heart to mine... your
soul to mine."
"Get out of my mind!" he screamed, tucking his own identity into as deep and
dark a crevice as he could find.
"Oh... Dr. Rayne," sang the voice. "Don't shut me out... you'll only hurt
yourself. I can do so much for you." To his musician's ear, which wasn't really hearing
it, the voice was almost perfection, but not quite... something was off-key.
"Who are you?" he asked, knowing the answer. He wasn't going to give up on
the masquerade yet... let her work for it a bit.
"Come now," she laughed. "You know who I am... and I know that you are
Derek Rayne."
A golden mist shimmered above the altar. Derek stepped forward as he watched
it stretch and spin until the mirage of a golden woman emerged. In the vortex, her long
hair swept around her body like prairie grass caught in a whirlwind.
"No... you're mistaken... I'm Piers Myndertsen," he declared, knowing the
futility of it. She had already touched his hiding places.
Tanit laughed a long, rolling, sultry laugh. "No... you are Dr. Derek Rayne....
Don't hide it... I know," she murmured. "How is the Legatus these days?" Again
laughing, she tossed her head, loving the feel of her own lust and the power of this
man's presence. She had felt none like him since a thousand years before Carthage had
died.
"The Legatus?" Derek repeated hesitantly. "I'm afraid you have me confused
with someone else," he said flatly. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just
here to sell some rockets and make some money."
He could feel her chuckle rumble through his mind. He amused her.
"Oh...," she marveled, "you are a joy. You're actually keeping me at bay and
trying to maintain your charade at the same time. Don't keep it up for so long that I tire
of the game.
"But, tell me," she continued, "are you still trying to fight evil with good? We're
much too powerful now. When I was strong enough to reach out and feel how many
man-creatures... excuse me... people are out there in the world now... and feel all of
their hungers and hatreds and fears... I knew that we had won."
Pretense done, Derek cast aside the baggage of the past few days and drew
himself up for battle. Emptying his mind of all thought except the fight against the
dazzling monstrosity that whirled before him, he shut his eyes, took a breath, searched
for the center of his being, then stepped to the foot of the bridge.
"You will never be that powerful," he said with a cold force that barely rose
above a whisper.
"Ahhhh, my dear precept," Tanit sighed, "you've come out to play."
Slowly the cloudlike apparition revolved before him. The golden image
changed... coalesced into a different form. Derek fought to grasp his wavering focus,
but no amount of obstinance could save it.
It was Kym who settled to the ground before the golden altar. Her naked skin
shone with sensuality as she walked toward him.
"Get away from me!" he cried. "I will not...." His mind's strength sank in an
ocean of fatigue.
"Oh... Derek, please," begged Kym, "I need you... show me what to do." She
tenderly grasped his hand to lead him across the bridge.
The young precept struggled to dispel the illusion before him. "You are not
Kym," he said firmly. "Kym is not here. You are Tanit... the baby-killer.... Kym?" He
dropped his attache case as his strength dwindled.
"Yes, darling... it's your Liefje," Kym's voice sang. "I need you... make love
to me." She pulled him toward the bed that stood before them.
Somewhere in a still functioning recess of his mind, Derek's soul was
whispering that the room before him was not their bedroom on Angel Island... that the
bed before him, strewn with rose petals, was not their bed. "Kym?" he murmured
faintly. "This isn't... right...."
Capturing his gaze with her hypnotic green eyes, Kym sang, "Yes... of course,
it's right." Passionately, she ran her fingers through his hair as she pulled him down
into a kiss.
Derek kissed her back. Deep inside him, his mind and soul knew that this was
not his wife, but his heart and body refused to cooperate.
"I want us to have a baby.... Give me this, please," she whispered.
Derek's hand searched her warm body as he bent her backwards across the bed.
He could feel her hands caressing his back beneath his shirt. "Kym...," he whimpered.
He opened his eyes as he combed through her luxurious red hair. Suddenly, he
glimpsed the diamond ring on his own finger. It was wrong! Just above Kym's head,
where there should have been a crimson arabesque emblazoned on the bedspread,
there was a horned triangle... not crimson, but like raw, living flesh. The illusion
shattered.
"Kym?" he whispered again as his lips roamed up her neck to her ear. "Or, is
it Tanit?" he said ferociously and pushed himself away.
"It's me, Derek. I promise... it's Kym," she sang, but her voice was no longer
a sweet soprano. Instead it had become a discordant contralto.
The precept backed away from the chimera before him... Tanit in her true form...
horned and feathered like a great black crow. "It won't work Tanit. I will not be
yours.... I am a Legacy precept."
The goddess tossed her head with its double row of curving silver horns. Her
laugh rumbled through the cavern. "I've always wanted one of those." She threw wide
her iridescent wings. Her silver talons glistened in the flickering light.
Derek slowly backed across the bridge as flames billowed up on either side.
"I'm sure you've tried," he taunted, "but it looks to me like they had you instead... or
were you vacationing out here in hell's-half-acre?"
"Merely resting, Schatje, darling." Again the temple echoed with her guttural
laugh. "I've been waiting so long for you."
"So it would appear." Derek knew that he was not prepared for a real
confrontation. Though lacking a true corporeal body, Tanit's spiritual powers were
formidable, far beyond what he could deal with at that moment... alone. He couldn't
let her sense his weakness. "I'm sorry," he shouted above her laugh, "you'll have to
wait a while longer."
"No!" she screeched as she spread her wings and whirled into the misty vortex.
"My wait is over. I've found the chosen one! The one who will complete me... and I
will not let you get away! I shall not lose!"
The precept felt himself being pulled into the swirling brilliance. "No!" he
screamed. He repelled the cyclonic force with all of the physical and mental strength
that remained. Suddenly, Tanit wailed. He saw the glittering maelstrom darken, bend
and spin away from him. The pull lessened. Derek managed to turn away to see the
chamber's door partially reappear. He bent to grasp the dropped briefcase, but it was
slapped from his hand and a microburst of wind forced him to his knees.
"Derek!" Tanit cried. "There's no way out, my love. Be mine!" she sang.
He reeled from the blackness of her essence... her thirst for power... for flesh...
her hunger for purity... for hatred and terror untainted. "I shall not be yours," Derek
retorted. "You are of the darkness. You feed from the hatred of fanatics and the terror
of innocents. I am neither!" he shouted.
"You are both!... in the belief that you can win... that good can ever defeat evil...
that light can ever dispel darkness."
Derek fought his way to his feet, only to be thrust down again. He clasped his
hands behind his head, shut his eyes, and curled over to bury his face in his lap. "You
will not feed from me," he groaned through gritted teeth, trying to slam the doors to
his spiritual core. "Get out of my mind! Rothoer, you have no power over me."
"I have every power over you!" howled Tanit in a whisper. "You will be mine!"
she hissed.
From the corner of his eye, the precept saw the leather case lying in the sand
only a few yards away. He didn't know what he could do with it, but, when the
goddess had touched his mind, he had realized that she knew little of the modern
world. It gave him hope. Staggering, he pushed himself to his feet.
"No!" he cried again. "I am Derek Rayne.... I am a Legacy precept.... I shall
never be yours. Your world is dead!" He launched himself toward the briefcase.
"No! Yours is!" she wailed in reply as she aimed a spiraling ball of
incandescence at the precept.
It hit him in the side with the shock of ball lightning. Derek felt the breath
smashed from him as he slammed into the wall. Stunned, he gasped for air and
struggled against the flickering stars that filled his vision. He swiped at the blood that
spilled into his right eye from a gash on his brow. Gathering every ounce of obstinance
and strength he still possessed, Derek Rayne forced himself to his feet. Weak kneed,
he leaned against the wall and pushed outward with his mind.
He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth and spat what remained onto the
ground. "You are a dead goddess of a dead civilization," he said quietly. At his push,
he had felt her back away. Had he hurt her before? What had he done? How had he
done it? Was he somehow able to project his thoughts outward at Tanit and sting her,
rather than just raise his own barriers to protect himself?
"And soon you will all join me," Tanit whispered. "Look!"
The temple vanished in an explosion of light and sound. Before him, in the sand,
lay the torn, charred bodies of his wife and friends. It was so real... trembling, he
reached forward to feel for the soullessness of their bodies. "No!" he screamed. "It's
not real. This isn't real!" Sweating and quivering with fatigue, he crashed through the
apparition. "It's not real," he repeated to himself. "Tanit... your only power is illusion.
You're fooling yourself," he shouted as he again wiped the blood from his eye and
pushed himself away from the wall. The briefcase lay about ten feet in front of him.
"It is real!" she hissed, flicking a long split tongue at him.
"You are not real," Derek insisted. "You are illusion. You have nothing more
in your bag of tricks. How does it feel to be an illusion... no body... no senses... no
nothing?" Slow step by slow, limping step he hobbled toward the leather case.
"You'll soon find out, my love," the goddess murmured. "Either we'll share the
illusion together... or I shall be real and you will be nothing."
Suddenly, a tendril of flame licked at his mind. He chopped it off as easily as if
he had done it with a meat cleaver, but, in that instant of surprise, Tanit had revealed
her earthly link... the altar. Derek also knew with certainty that her power over him lay,
not as with others in hatred and fear, but in the psychic reaches of his brain.
"You have no power without human emotion to feed upon, do you?" he asked
in complete understanding. He searched for the keys to lock the doors on his emotional
and psychic self... and found them one by one.
"What are you doing?" she cried in panic. "Look at me, Derek!" she demanded.
Once more he wiped the blood from his eye and dug through the pain and
weariness. He stiffened his back and drew himself up to his full six feet. "You are
nothing but a jumped up succubus... an imp with delusions of grandeur," he said,
forcing a haughty disdain into his voice. He smiled to himself when he realized he
sounded like William Sloan at his most arrogant. "Well," he mumbled, "I guess if I had
to sound like him sometime, now is a good time for it to happen."
"You are a mere mortal," she countered. To yield to this brash child, meant not
only the loss of her chance for real life once more, but the anger of her mentor at her
failure to capture this being who seemed to hold such importance for him.
"A mortal who knows you are of no consequence," said Derek. "Gods without
believers are nothing." He dove at the case and, as his fingers touched it, he flicked the
button that ejected the flash-bang grenade into his hand. In a single movement, he
lobbed it in the direction of the altar, grasped the case, and pushed himself to make a
dash for the door.
"No!" screamed Tanit.
Derek felt her total confusion and absolute terror. At that moment he knew that
her link was not the altar itself but the symbol upon it. She knew about explosives, but
not enough about them. Her terror meant that the link could be broken, if the symbol
was destroyed... and the terror also meant that it could be destroyed.
Quickly he opened the case and reached in for the gun, then triggered the smoke
bomb and hurled case and all through the open doorway. Ducking, he followed it. As
he ran into the antechamber, the Uzi's bullets bounced off the rock wall to his left. He
felt one rip through his pants and scorch his thigh, while another tore through the
shoulder pad of his jacket. The boy couldn't see him, but knew the direction. Derek
bent low and ran a curving path toward where he hoped the ladder would be.
Suddenly, he was face to face with the Irishman. Murphy's look was still blank,
but his hand held a pistol. As if in microscopic slow motion, the precept saw the man's
finger tighten on the trigger. Derek had no choice. He aimed the magnum and fired,
hitting the Irishman in the chest and blasting him backwards off his feet into the sand.
Bullets smacked around him as he began his climb. He glanced down to see the young
boy spraying the walls with his Uzi. Derek refused to aim his gun at the child, who
seemed no older than Nick Boyle, but it was an unnecessary act of honor. The boy
died at his own hand and his own vacant mind, when the bullets so uselessly fired,
ricocheted back at him.
Glancing down, Derek saw the two lifeless, bleeding bodies in the sand beneath... ultimately victims of their own hatred and of something more... obscene. He looked up to the bright blue circle above and caught the flicker of a shadow... a guard... waiting. Time to trust in God... and blind luck.
< < + > >
Johnny Boyle paced beside the helicopter's open door. The heat was stifling and
the chopper itself offered little shade from the midday sun, but he wasn't going to get
more than three feet from the Ingram, which lay tucked beneath the pilot's seat. He
glanced at his watch... four hours.
He had nervously watched as Hassan and the others had led Derek away. All
had seemed cordial enough, but this wasn't the plan. He was supposed to stay with his
precept. First, he had seen them all enter what he assumed was the administration
center, a two storey cinder-block building with numerous antennae and an antiaircraft
gun emplacement on the roof. They had remained there for well over an hour.
Then, the major had seen them emerge, laughing and talking as though some
bargain had been struck that pleased everyone. After that Hassan and his group had
returned to their cars and had left Derek in the hands of others, some of whom Boyle
had not noticed before. What he had noticed throughout, was that several of the men
kept their guns casually leveled in the precept's direction. His own guards' M-16's
were not so casually aimed. Apparently, they wanted no doubt about who would
receive the bullet at the first wrong move.
Wishing he dared use the binoculars, Johnny watched as they led Derek past the
obstacle course, from building to building on what seemed to be an inspection tour.
The major thanked the gods that his friend had chosen to wear white... easy to spot.
Finally, the group had disappeared amongst a cluster of buildings on the far end of the
camp and had not reappeared since... now almost two hours ago.
Suddenly, he heard gunfire coming from beyond the buildings, in the direction
of the drilling site. "Shit!" he said as he spun about to land a kick to his guard's groin.
The man collapsed with a pained moan. Johnny pulled the M-16 from his hands and
in a split second it was over for the other guard as well, but not before the man had
gotten off a shot that had grazed the former soldier across the shoulder. No matter...
pain like that could be controlled.
He tossed the gun into the chopper and grabbed the Ingram from under the seat.
What should he do? The plan had gone to hell in a handbasket. Derek didn't have the
necessary combat skills to make it through a camp up in arms to either the
communications center or here, to the chopper.
Boyle climbed into the pilot's seat and started the blades whirring. He heard a
few bullets ping off of the aircraft's metal skin and prayed that nothing had penetrated.
Thankfully, he wasn't yet the focus of the camp's attention, but Derek was. He pushed
the RPM's up as fast as he could, reached for the headset, and lifted off through a
cloud of dust.
| CHAPTER 30 |
| E-mail: Dubricus | CONTENTS | E-mail: Selena |
