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Brendan Carroll, Novelist
Category:
Fantasy
Publisher: Brendan Carroll
ISBN-10: 1481979191
Type: Fiction
Pages: 248
Copyright: Aug 24, 2012
ISBN-13: 9781481979191
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
As more secrets about the members of the Order of the Red Cross of Gold come to light, the adventure continues.
As more secrets about the members of the Order of the Red Cross of Gold come to light, the adventure continues. One Ancient Evil is gone, but another digs deeper, even into the depths of the Abyss, with plans to repopulate the devastated earth with her spawn. At the same time, a reformed Reshki makes plans for a grand reunion of all her 'kinfolk', putting up a grand outlay in the Fifth Gate and sending out invitations to her guests. And even though the entire world's future is as stake, she doesn't intend to take no for an answer.
Excerpt
“Now clear your mind as I have instructed,” the Golden Goddess closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sky. Luke Andrew followed suit and tried to think of nothing. The very act of trying to think of nothing was actually thinking of something as in nothing. He shook his head and tried again to follow her instructions.
“Open your mind to the ether. Feel the energy of the Universe flowing through your mind. Feel the vortices swirling in your body. Your feet. Your knees. Your solar plexus. Your…”
“Wait!” Luke reached out one hand and touched her arm slightly. She lowered her head and cut her eyes at him. “I lost my train of thought.”
“You are not supposed to have a train of thought, Luke,” she said patiently. “You are supposed to have no thoughts at all. That is the purpose of clearing your mind so the thoughts of others may fill the space. Once you can hear the thoughts of others, you can begin to listen only to the voices you wish to hear.”
“All right. All right.” Luke drew a deep breath and closed his eyes before letting it out slowly. He went through the mental exercise again, emptying his head of thoughts as if he had known how to do it all along. At once, he heard a thousand whisperings, garbled, and then he saw a light in the middle of his forehead as if he were looking at himself from the outside.
“Good. Good.” Semiramis’ voice was soothing, and it was very hard for him not to wander back in time to another place when another woman of extraordinary character had tried to teach him to use his latent abilities. “Now listen. I will guide you. I am with you. I am inside your mind. I am one with you. Let me choose the voices, and we will hear the thoughts of our loved ones.”
Luke’s consciousness took another step downward, and he felt a warm sensation in the center of his body spreading outwards very quickly, and then a feeling of peace such as he had never known before. A voice came clearly to him as if the person speaking were standing directly in front of him. In fact, he could see the form of his half-brother in its bizarre entirety in front of him, and he smiled in spite of himself. The Mighty Djinni stood before him dressed in curling golden shoes, baggy purple pants, short gold vest and a flamboyant turban of enormous size.
“Is that how you see your brother?” Semiramis’ voice held a hint of amusement. “Listen. His message is urgent.”
Luke tore his attention from the appearance of the specter in order to focus on the words.
“Mother, I beg you. Hear the pleas of your favored son, Adalune. Why have you turned yourself from me? What have I done to displease you? My heart is broken, my life is ruined.”
“What does he mean?” Luke did not ask this question aloud, but it seemed Lemarik frowned directly at him.
“Mother! Who is this with you? Is that my brother? Is this why you have forsaken me? Surely you cannot love him more than me?”
Luke was taken aback by these plaintive words full of real pain and very real jealousy.
“My son, you dishonor me with your words. I have been teaching your brother as I taught you,” she said and there was a definite rebuke in her tone.
Again Luke was confused. What did she mean? Had she also taught her own son these things? All these things?
“He is not my son, Adalune,” she continued and Luke could only assume she could read his thoughts as well Lemarik’s. “He is your brother. He is his father’s son. Not mine. He is here as my… guest, not as my child. You are my only son, Adalune. How could anyone compete with you in that regard? A mother’s love for her children is beyond comparison of any other. You are the sole owner of this love, but you cannot compete with your father or your brothers for the lesser measure bestowed upon a lover.”
Luke felt sure that Lemarik would burst out of the vision and turn him into a toad or a slug.
“Ahhhh. Ohhhh. I am indeed misguided in my thoughts.” Lemarik’s bizarre attire disappeared and he re-appeared wearing the clothes had infuriated Luke during his first encounters with him. Black trousers, white dress shirt, black tie. The very same funeral attire in which Luke Andrew had been buried he had worn the first time Luke Andrew had seen him. “Forgive me.”
“What is your need, my son?” Semiramis asked him.
“Your firstborn grandson, Omar Adam, is ill. He has encountered the horror of Huber in the Abyss and she has affected his mind. Your presence might ease his suffering.”
“I will attend you directly, my son,” Semiramis’ voice seemed far away and then Lemarik’s form was gone.
The next voice was a shock. His father’s voice.
“Ahhh, Lily, now…The lassie is distraught, and she’s confused, and in pain, and…”
He and the golden goddess listened quietly to his father’s words. They could not hear the woman’s responses. When Luke could stand it no longer, he broke the spell.
“Where is he? What is going there?” Luke demanded of her.
“Do you not know who Lily is, my son?” She turned her crystal eyes on him.
“I don’t know any Lily, and I didn’t think my father did either,” he started angrily and then sighed. “Well, of course, I don’t know everyone he knows, him being such an old geezer and all.”
“Lily Ramsay is your grandmother.”
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