The Eye of Zuebrihn, page 1
part #1 of Eldenworld Series
Copyright © 2015 PD McClafferty All rights reserved
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: pdmcclafferty@gmail.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
+image+ Cover artwork by Gary Val Tenuta at www.gvtgraphics.com
Interior artwork by Chris Cold
For more works by PD McClafferty, please visit www.pdmcclafferty.com
ISBN-10:0-9864245-6-0
ISBN-13:978-0-9864245-6-4
One man’s ‘magic’ is another man’s engineering. ‘Supernatural’ is a null word.
Robert A. Heinlein
CONTENTS
Chapter 1: AN ENDING
Chapter 2: DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
Chapter 3: SHAPESHIFTER
Chapter 4: WHITE RAGE
Chapter 5: THE LIBRARY
Chapter 6: DRAGONSIGN
Chapter 7: SANCTUARY
Chapter 8: KIANG SAI-BO
Chapter 9: COUP DE MAIN
Chapter 10: THE CARAVAN
Chapter 11: BLAJURGH AND POINTS NORTH
Chapter 12: THE EYE
Chapter 1
AN ENDING
Blood, like strange Rorschach patterns, had dried on the inside plastered walls of the Iraqi house. The shape next to the bullet holes in the north wall could have been a swan, while the shape on the south wall seemed to resemble a dog… in a snowstorm. A turtle could have been slowly crawling across the scarred wooden floor, next to the smudged and dried handprint. Although the bloodstains were years old, gunfire could still be heard in the sweltering air outside the building.
“Gunny, will you please go down there and get Corporal Desjardin’s ass out of the jam he’s gotten himself into.” Gunnery Sergeant, USMC, Ernst Gareth Köhler, he much preferred the name Gareth to Ernst, raised his own field glasses, peering through the pane-less window at the activity one hundred meters away. A rifle round caromed from the sand-colored brick near his head and he flinched involuntarily from the stinging grains of sand that had struck his cheek. His gaze traveled down the street of ruined buildings that had at one time been a flourishing business district. The politicians called it the third Iraqi war, although it was more a continuation of the second.
The first war with Saddam had been fairly straightforward. Years later, when the Americans returned in force, the battle with the ISIS terrorists, and then the SIN militants began to get murky. As far as Gareth could tell, there were no winners to the wars except the arms merchants, and the press of course. Now the empty, broken windows of the shops stared like sightless eyes at the bloodstained, abandoned buildings all around them.
“I’ll fetch Mr. Desjardin back to the rest of the platoon, Lieutenant, if there’s anything left of him.” He took a deep breath. “Oorah!” Gareth muttered, before ducking around the wall that the balance of the foreword reconnaissance platoon had been using for cover.
“Semper Fi.” The Lieutenant said to his retreating back.
Broken field running across the rubble-strewn street of Karabilah, Iraq, the Sergeant moved his eighty-five kilogram body with the grace born of many hours in the martial arts dojo. The flat crack of an AK-47 shattered the still air, and geysers of dust echoed his footsteps scant centimeters from his heels.
He stopped, panting, as he fought to catch his breath. I’m getting too old for this shit. He thought, resting a hand against a fire-blackened wall and taking a deep breath of air that smelled of camel dung, nitrocellulose, and carrion. Fire from a machine gun chewed a section of door casing ahead of him to splinters. He waited for a momentary lull while the shooter reloaded, and then ran full tilt, launching his lean frame through the window ahead of him where he’d last seen the corporal. He landed in a roll, bringing up his Heckler & Koch 416, the sand colored Heckler & Koch replacement for the venerable Colt M4, as his hazel eyes quickly surveyed the room.
“Desjardin! Where the hell are you?” He shouted.
“Here, Sarge.” A voice called from the next room.
An unrecognizable apparition stood before him; uniform, face, hands, and weapon all blended together in a homogeneous sand color— but he recognized the voice. “You okay?” he asked, visually checking the soldier out. He noticed no blood or anything seriously out of place. Often troopers didn’t realize they were injured until someone pointed it out to them. At least this one still had his weapon. Despite his penchant for getting himself into trouble, Gareth liked the dour Desjardin.
“Yeah, my ears are ringing a bit from the last RPG, but I’m okay.”
“Good. The LT wants you back on the double. Did you check out this building for survivors?” Years of intermittent fighting had left few of the original sixty thousand civilians still in the city. Over half the buildings no longer had roofs, but you had to check. Some of the locals had this silly idea that Al-Karabilah, located a scant eight kilometers from the Syrian border, was actually their home.
“Ah, I think it’s clear, Sarge. I didn’t hear no one.”
“Scheiße. Well, get your skinny ass back to the LT at the checkpoint and tell him I’ll be along in a minute.”
“But, Sarge, don’t you think…”
“Get your ass back right now.”
Desjardin bolted through the door as Gareth lay down suppressing fire toward a street of windowless, roofless buildings. Damn newbie, he thought, knocking down a ragged figure carrying an AK-47, with a three-round burst from his rifle. He’s going to get me killed. The body in the street twitched in the dust while the fronds of the few palm trees hung limply in the hot grimy air.
It wasn’t until he’d entered his third room that Gareth realized that he was in a mosque, and an old one at that. He’d just glimpsed the edge of a trap door under a threadbare blue carpet when he heard the familiar hollow crump of mortars being launched. Assuming that the rounds were being fired directly at him, he jerked the convenient trap door open and, shutting his eyes while he hoped for the best, dove headfirst down the stairs as the mosque blew to flinders over him.
Garble…garble…garble, “Köhler. Sergeant Köhler, do you copy?”
The stars had finally stopped spinning in his head as Gareth fumbled for the transmit button on his mic. There was a bitter coppery taste in his mouth, and he spat a bloody wad into the dust at his feet.
“Yeah, I’m okay, but I think the whole friggin mosque fell on me. I’ll try and find a way out.”
“Negative, Sergeant.” The voice of the Lieutenant crackled with static. “Things are too hot right now. We’re going to call in a couple of F-35s with JDAMs to clear the insurgents out. It should be about thirty minutes.”
“Roj, copy. Thirty minutes. Standing by.”
Gareth released his radio and took out his small black Mini Maglite. Hurry up and wait; he thought, and then, might as well look around my temporary home. Old scrolls had fallen from a broken wooden rack and littered the floor, some still wrapped in what looked to him like ancient yellowed parchment. What the hell, he thought, carefully taking an especially well-sealed scroll and gently unwrapping it. He couldn’t read the spidery script, but he did recognize some of the symbols from his college courses in ancient mythology. Cool! He thought in wonder. This looks like the Seal of Solomon. He frowned at the image.
Instead of the intricate seal he was familiar with in his school book, this drawing showed a woman’s face, cold and imperious, surrounded by unreadable Arabic script. Her hair appeared strange, twisting snakelike, as if it had a life all its own. Mixed into the script were swords and spears, indicating that this deity wasn’t simply a passive participant, but a fighter, if necessary. The single inverted V he knew from ancient history. The Spartans used the red Greek capital letter lambda (Λ) displayed on their shields as an identification for the people of Lacedaemonia, and that made no sense at all, especially in the basement of a mosque in what would have then been ancient Persia. The seal, however, was vaguely and disturbingly familiar.
Other drawings on the scroll showed human torsos with various tattoos inscribed all over them. As he mentally discarded his first assumption that this was the Seal of Solomon, an idea began to form in Gunnery Sergeant Köhler’s mind. An idea even he couldn’t imagine the consequences of.
In the grimy sweltering cellar in Karabilah, Gareth Köhler carefully folded the ancient scroll and put it in a cargo pocket of his third generation Marine digicams. Forty minutes later he felt the ground jump as the JDAM precision munitions pounded the insurgent positions, and in an hour he was riding in a JLTV (Joint Light Tactical Vehicle), the replacement for the dated Humvee, heading back to the staging area where they were all billeted.
Later that night, after an unappetizing meal of “Meal Ready to Eat Individual—Menu No.15 Beef Enchilada,” he finally managed a couple of minutes alone in the tent he and five other NCOs were sharing. Gareth ran his fingers through his short brown hair that was starting to go gray unnaturally early, then took the folded scroll, carefully slipping it between the pages of a yellowed newspaper from his home town, and laid it flat in the bottom of his battered green footlocker. He buried the newspaper, under layers of worn socks, old underwear, the rest of his personal gear, and lastly his uniform items. Let anyone dig down to that! He’d go over the scroll more carefully when they were rotated back to a rear echelon in a month or so. If the information was really important, he could turn it in at a local mosque and gain a few brownie points. At thirty years old he had to look out for himself. Brownie points were brownie points, and might even mean a promotion to Master Sergeant… sometime in the distant future.
The next day he, the Lieutenant, and Corporal Desjardin had the unenviable duty of convoy support. As top gunner in the JLTV, Gareth was more vulnerable to sniper fire than those inside, but it wasn’t a sniper that had him worried.
Claude Desjardin, the relatively inexperienced driver, never saw the HEAT (high explosive anti-tank) round from the RPG. The last thing Sergeant Gareth Köhler remembered was flying through the air, screaming agony burning the left side of his body from head to foot.
Mumble…mumble…mumble. “Doctor, I think he’s awake.” Lights were blinding overhead, but strangely he could only see those on his right side. There was a cold metallic taste in his mouth, and the table was icy beneath him. Funny, it shouldn’t be cold, he thought groggily, imagining he was back in Karabilah.
“Give him some gas, we still have a lot of work to do on him.” Gareth wondered how gas was going to help whatever it was they were working on. Then he spiraled down a deep black hole.
He slowly spiraled up the dark hole and when he reached the top, he found others waiting for him. He opened his eyes. His eye. Only one seemed to work. From the corner of that one good eye he could see the edges of the bandages that wrapped his head.
“Doctor, he’s awake now.”
Gareth tried to sit up and found himself strapped down. He couldn’t even lift his head.
“There there, son,” said the doctor, who couldn’t have been more than four years older than Köhler, in a practiced clinical voice. “You’ve had a rough time but you’ll be okay.”
Gareth doubted it. When he tried to speak it came out as an inaudible whisper. A nurse appeared immediately with a glass and a straw. He sipped and swore he’d never tasted anything better than this lukewarm water. “Cut the shit and tell me how bad I am.” He finally got out.
“Well, Sergeant Köhler, we’re not certain of all the tests yet…”
“Doctor!” The cute nurse with the red hair said, shooting the doctor a green-eyed glare.
The doctor looked tired now, lines of fatigue pulling down his face until he did look as old as Köhler’s father might have, had he been alive. “Your vehicle was ambushed by SIN militants. It was hit with at least three RPGs and was destroyed. You’ve lost your left leg just below the knee. Your left eye is damaged but time will tell if it can be repaired and there is significant facial and bodily scaring. For now, you’re blind in your left eye. Both your Lieutenant Riznik and Corporal Desjardin were killed in the explosion. If you had been inside the JLTV you would have been killed too.”
“Shit, shit shit!!” Hands held him as he tried to jerk out of the bed. This has to be a mistake, he thought desperately as a growl escaped his lips. This can’t be happening to me!
The needle stung his arm and he slept.
~~~
Sixteen months later Gareth Köhler, former gunnery sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, limped painfully up the steps of the University of San Diego. His wife and he owned a small house outside Camp Pendleton, and although California hadn’t been his first choice in discharge destinations, it was the only place he could even remotely call home.
The military doctors had been very kind. They fitted him with a prosthetic leg that hurt after wearing it an hour and told him, “You have our condolences. The damage to your eye is irreparable. Sorry about the scars on your face. Repair of your scars by Tricare is considered cosmetic surgery, and is therefore not covered by your insurance. Try the VA,” and showed him the door.
His wife showed him similar understanding. The SOLD sign in the front yard of their house he’d worked so hard on, struck him like a body blow. At the side of the garage a garbage can sat, overflowing with his civilian clothes. Shutting his eyes, he took a deep breath. He’d thought the text he received from Marjorie a joke. She’d said simply, GOODBYE. DONT BOTHR GOING HOME. All in caps, no less.
Thanks to his GI disability he found that he could afford the rent on a small flat near the docks, with a little money to spare for food and utilities. That was always nice. His savings bought him a used white Volvo on its last legs. He called the car the Rat, and smiled to himself at the irony that fit the situation; both he and Rat were on their last legs.
So now he was limping up the steps to San Diego University to try and get an engineering degree. Students stared at him as he moved toward the building looking more like an old man than a student. He figured there was good money in engineering in California. The only problem was that all the engineering classes were filled this semester and that left only electives. In this case it meant Western Philosophy 101.
He sighed as he sat down at an empty chair toward the back of the classroom. Professor Neubaum, a thin, worried-looking scrap of a man scuttled into the room, briefly settled his belongings on the desk, and began to lecture in his high scratchy voice on the attributes of Descartes. Gareth shut his eye to ease the headache he’d developed during the hectic drive to the campus. It only seemed like it had been closed ten seconds when Neubaum was screaming at him.
“Mr. Köhler! Is my class so unimportant that you can sleep through it?”
“Sorry, sir, I have a headache and was merely resting my eye.”
“Resting your eye, were you?” The word eye came out as a sneer. “Well, what were we discussing while you were ‘resting’?”
While in boot camp, Gareth had developed the ability to remember what he heard when his eyes were closed. “You were telling the class that Descartes was, in your opinion, one of the most notable philosophers of our time. Then you asked Miss Anderson,” a pretty blonde who had a nice smile but bad teeth, “when Descartes was born—and she answered. Then you began screaming at me.”
“I do not scream!” Neubaum screamed. The man stormed down the aisle and stopped in front of his seat. Gareth thought the teacher was going to take a swing at him. That would have been a mistake. “You are a slacker, a freeloader and a loafer.” Neubaum stared at Gareth’s ruined face for a moment before continuing. “How did you get those scratches? Get into a car wreck with some drunken friends?”
The background noise in the classroom dropped to nothing as the class held its collective breath. Obviously, they knew Gareth’s background but Neubaum didn’t. The chair squealed like fingernails on a chalkboard, as Gareth pushed his seat back and stood up. Reaching out, he grabbed the front of Neubaum’s jacket and shirt in his right hand. Neubaum struggled futilely as Gareth unhurriedly lifted him thirty centimeters off the floor, and held him there. Nose to nose Gareth whispered to the terrified teacher.
“I lost my left eye and my left leg when a Rocket Propelled Grenade in Iraq blew off the front of my JLTV. The same explosion killed my two best friends. No, I wasn’t in a drunken accident.” Still carrying the struggling Neubaum, Gareth limped to the front of the room where he placed Neubaum back at his desk. “Now teach you’re your class, drecksau.” Without a further word Gareth turned, limped back to his seat and sat down, hazel eye like a frozen amber fragment fixed on Neubaum.
The latter sat stunned at his desk, a thin line of spittle running unnoticed down his chin and onto his natty brown tweed sport coat. With a screech he jumped up and, shouting about assault in his own classroom, fled down the corridor waving his arms like a hysterical chicken. Gareth sighed, picked up his books and limped out of the door. “Shoulda stayed in bed.” The class heard him mutter as he left.
An hour later in the lounge, after suffering through two cups of vending machine coffee that both smelled and tasted bitter, a hand on Gareth’s shoulder restrained him from leaving the university building.
“That was probably not the most politically correct action to take this morning, Mr. Köhler.” A quiet voice said next to his ear. Gareth didn’t bother to turn.
“It seemed the right thing to do, at the time. Should I maybe care?” He bit off saying more. The hand didn’t move.
“Yes, you should, and I believe you probably do.” Köhler turned to look at a tall black man with salt and pepper hair in Jesuit garb. Probably one of the better professors, he thought dryly.
