Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel (21 page)

“What’s the name of that one?”

“He has so many names,” Faustus
said. “Where I come from, he was once known as The Abhorred Dread.”

“That’s an impressive title,” Kabede
admitted.

“I have heard him called
Nyarlathotep as well,” said Faustus.

“Why is this ‘Hour of Incursion’
even needed?” the Rider chuckled nervously. “It seems like there are enough
Outer Gods here already.”

“There are quite enough,” Faustus
agreed, smiling mirthlessly, “but the greatest of them lie beyond the borders
of this world. And they that skulk here command only a fraction of their own
power without the rest. Don’t let your victory against Shub-Niggurath lull you.
You were both exceedingly lucky to have come out of that affair alive at all.
And think about what even that brief encounter cost you.”

The Rider didn’t like to, so he
urged them back to the matter at hand.

“If this meeting’s going to happen
in a secret Apache stronghold, how am I going to get close to Misquamacus?” the
Rider asked. “They’ll kill a white man on sight.”

“I will bear along your spirit,
Rider Who Walks,” Piishi said. “And you will speak through my lips.”

The Rider looked from Piishi to
Faustus.

“I’ve explained it to him, and he’s
willing,” said Faustus. “We’ll wait in Nacozari and keep watch over your body
while you meet with Misquamacus through Piishi.”

“How long from Nacozari to this
stronghold?” the Rider asked.

“A day’s ride up into the mountains,”
said Piishi.

“You could never maintain possession
that long and at such a distance,” Kabede said.

“You may be right,” the Rider
agreed, sighing.

“With my wagon you can,” said
Faustus. He rose. “Here, let me show you.”

A few moments later they were
standing in the vardo, which though surprisingly spacious, seemed to be jam
packed with heaps of books and baubles, astrolabes, and magical paraphernalia.
A bank of scrolls was situated in one corner, and the Rider thought momentarily
about the Egyptian scroll Adon wanted so badly. He wondered if Faustus could
identify it. But he was still not sure he entirely trusted the man.

Faustus led them past the bed and
the stove to a black curtain in the back. Drawing it aside, he revealed what
appeared to be a door the size of a hotel dumbwaiter. He turned the handle and
swung it open, revealing a dark space in which something glittered and moved.

Kabede flinched instinctively, but
Faustus took a lantern off the wall sconce and shined it within.

It was a small room, which could
just about accommodate an average sized man sitting Indian style, and no more.
It was entirely lined with mirrors, floors, wall and ceiling. Even the back of
the little door was fitted with polished glass. A silver candleholder was
bolted to the floor, surrounded by hard puddles of cold yellow wax.

“What is it?” the Rider asked,
peering in.

“An apparition booth,” said Faustus.
“A psychomanteum. The Greeks used it to communicate with the spirit realm and
prolong divinatory trances. It will greatly extend your meditative powers, and
prolong the time you can remain out of your body a hundredfold.”

The Rider looked doubtfully at the
little mirrored box. He felt sweat break out on the back of his neck as he
stooped and stuck his head inside.

He withdrew, a little too quickly.
It seemed too small in there. How could that little box hold a man and keep him
alive? Was there enough air?

“I don’t know if I can do it,” the
Rider blurted.

“If you still don’t trust me…”
Faustus began.

“It’s got nothing to do with that,”
the Rider said, a little defensively. “I don’t do well with tight spaces.”

Since when? But he knew suddenly
that it was so. He had never been claustrophobic so far as he knew, but he
couldn’t remember ever being confronted with a situation like this. As a boy,
he’d had a friend...Aloysius. Aloysius Monkowitz, a printer’s son. The kid had
been afraid of everything. Dirt, germs, the outdoors themselves. He had passed
out once when confronted with sharing a
mikvah
bath. The other boys at the
yeshiva
had always made fun of him. But of a sudden, he understood that strange,
irrational fear.

“If it must be done,” Kabede said, “I
can do it.”

“No, it has to be the Rider,”
Faustus said. “You have no influence with Misquamacus.”

“I could pretend to be the Rider,”
Kabede suggested. “You could tell me everything I need to know.”

“No,” said the Rider. “He’ll know
whether it’s me or not right away anyway.” He closed his eyes and breathed in
the way he had been taught, but it did little to slow the rapid beating of his
heart. He rose abruptly.

“When do we leave?”

“In the morning,” said Faustus.

“We’ll gather our things.”

They had to lift Belden bodily and
lay him in the barracks, and true to Faustus’ word, he didn’t stir, but snored
in his usual manner, even when they stumbled and nearly dropped him onto his
rope cot.

“Will we take him with?” Kabede
asked, looking down on the sleeping man when it was done.

“I think we should,” the Rider
relented. “I would hate to have him out alone in the wilderness and have the
shedim
or the Creed come across him.
Dick wounded DeKorte, and he may come after him.”

“You are committed to doing this for
the old man?”

“I see his point about the Apache,”
the Rider said. “And Piishi is a friend. I trust him anyway. You can go to
Tombstone and wait for me, you know. With the staff you should be alright. You
could take Dick with you.”

“You cannot do this alone.”

“You heard the old man,” the Rider
said, putting his hand on Kabede’s shoulder. “My fight’s nearly over. You’re
going to have to be the one to carry on, to finish it. HaShem must have called
you to take up the Rod of Aaron for that reason.”

Kabede worked his jowls, staring. He
knew what the African was thinking. He didn’t want to go on alone.

The Rider squeezed his shoulder, and
let his arm fall.

“We will go to Tombstone together,”
Kabede said, almost lightly, turning and undressing for bed. “We will find a
minyan
there, and a Torah, and we will
change your name. At any rate, if you are wrong about Shar-rogs Pa, or whatever
he calls himself, you will need more than Dick Belden to save you.”

The Rider said nothing. He knew
Kabede was right.

In the morning they told Belden of
their intent as he cooked breakfast.

“If you boys trust this old buzzard,”
Belden said, “that’s fine. I’ve got no particular place to go anyhow. I’d just
as soon come along to watch out for that Apache for you.”

“Piishi’s a friend, Dick,” the Rider
admonished.

“Don’t get me wrong, Joe. I’ve
counted Yaquis, Navajos, and Cherokees among my friends, but Apaches are
Apaches first. They don’t have white friends,” Belden observed, sipping his
coffee and watching Piishi secure the camels’ rigging. “Black ones neither,
Kabede,” he said as an afterthought.

Faustus and Piishi joined them for
coffee and beans after they had watered and fed the camels. To Belden’s dismay,
Kabede and the Rider refused to eat the bacon he’d fried.

“We don’t eat pork,” the Rider said.
“Sorry, Dick.”

Belden grumbled something about
Jewdoo
and went to scrape bacon onto the
Apache’s plate, but Piishi too held his hand over it

“No pig.”

“What? Apaches ain’t Hebrew!”

“Pigs eat snakes. Apache don’t eat
snakes.”

“This pig came from the Herrera farm
down in the valley. I’m pretty damn sure they didn’t feed it snakes.”

“Pretty damn sure ain’t sure enough,”
Piishi said.

Faustus chuckled.

Belden shook his head and held the
pan over Faustus’ plate. The old man held up his hand.

“I’m a vegetarian.”

“What am I supposed to do with all
this goddamned bacon?” Belden said, exasperated.

“Eat it or bury it,” Piishi said.

After breakfast, the Rider led his
onager out of the stable. The animal had benefitted from the long rest, and its
flanks were swollen again, the ribs no longer visible. He ruffled the beast’s
undamaged ear and tied it to the back of the vardo.

“A curious looking animal,” Faustus
remarked. “Wherever did you get it?”

“Jerusalem,” the Rider said.

“You ported him all the way back
here? Uncommon.”

“He’s an uncommonly good animal,”
the Rider said. “Anyway, what about your camels? They’re not exactly native to
Arizona.”

“For all intents and purposes these
are. I bought them from a Turk in Quartzsite. The cavalry was experimenting
with them before the war broke out. They’re good for the desert, but as you’ve
seen, they tend to spook horses and mules. I’ve had to dissuade quite a few men
from taking shots at them after their pack mules bucked and ran.”

Faustus let the onager smell his
hand. Soon it nuzzled against him.

“He doesn’t usually take to
strangers,” the Rider observed.

“Perhaps it’s a sign that you should
trust me,” Faustus said with a wink.

The Rider said nothing, but patted
the onager’s shoulder and joined Piishi at the front of the vardo.

“How did you come by this man,
Piishi?” the Rider asked.

“He came to me,” Piishi said. “He
knew my name. He said that the spirit of Tats’adaah had come to him and told
him what had happened at Red House.”

Tats’adaah. Chaksusa’s Apache name.

“Did you stay in the mountains after
Red House?”

“I went down to San Carlos to rest,”
Piishi said. “The reservation. He came peddling medicine, and asking for me.”

“You believe him?”

“I told no one of what we saw
beneath Red House.”

The Rider nodded. It was truly good
to see Piishi again. They had faced Shub-Niggurath and the Cold Ones together,
and had shared some brief mental connection when it was over. Both of them had
known the all-engulfing hopelessness of The Outer God, the undeniable surety
that to this cosmic thing, the whole of humanity was irrelevant. There was no
one else alive who so shared the Rider’s experience.

“The Apache believe in one god, don’t
they?”

“Usen.”

“Piishi, after the things we saw, do
you still believe in Usen?”

The Apache nodded slowly.

“But if Usen is God, what did we
fight at Red House? What is Shub-Niggurath?”

“I was taught that before there was
light on the world,” said Piishi, “there were nameless monsters that dwelled in
the dark. They ate the children of man so that the people could not grow. The
birds made war on them, and Eagle killed their chief with a sacred stone. Like
the one you had, I think. Anyhow, Usen doesn’t bother with the affairs of men.
That is how I know he is God.”

“You felt what I felt. You know She
didn’t care about man either.”

“Then why was She there? There are
the Di-yin, the good spirits, and the Gan, the guardian spirits of the
mountains, but there are evil spirits too, Rider. The Nameless who survived the
war. They grow stronger from the blood of corrupt people. Usen didn’t make
them, but they are there. That is what I think.”

“Why doesn’t Usen get rid of them
then?”

“Who can say what is in the mind of
God?” Piishi said. “Maybe it is a warrior’s test that they remain. Maybe it is
for us to drive them out.”

The Rider shrugged. He envied all
these men whose faith was so much greater than his own.

“When you go to the meeting, I’ll be
with you. In your head.”

“That is the old man’s plan.”

“I want you to keep this with you,”
the Rider said, taking the gilded Henry rifle from its scabbard and handing it
over.

“A yellow star rifle,” Piishi said,
in a hushed voice, his eyes alight at the workmanship, a rare and infectious
grin splitting his dour face. “Like your pistol.”

“Yes. It bears the star eye,” the
Rider said, tapping the largest emblem, the Elder Sign just in front of the
breech, “like on that sacred stone. Keep it in the boot. It might help you-it
might help us—when we need it.”

Piishi took the rifle and scabbard,
checked the action, then slid it away. He looked at it thoughtfully and
frowned.

“And this too,” the Rider said after
some thought, and drew his cold iron Bowie knife with its sacred sigils from
his belt.

“Too much, Rider,” Piishi said, shaking
his head. “Too much. I am not a rich man. I have nothing to give.”

“You can give it back when I see
you,” the Rider said. “It’s a holy knife. It’ll protect you. Us.”

Piishi shrugged and pushed it
through his belt. He took his own knife out, a beaded, antler horn handled
affair, and put it in the Rider’s hand. The Rider smiled and slid it into the
sheath on his belt.