Paul Kemprecos
The Emerald Scepter
For Christi, of course.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all I would like to thank my pals in the Clive Cussler Society for their continued support and for encouraging me to write a book on my own. Here it is, gang! I’m grateful to Wayne Valero, president and founder of the CCCS, for his insightful suggestions on how to improve the pile of pages I sent him. My line editor Gabe Robinson cut away thousands of words that were cluttering up the manuscript, but the surgery vastly improved the flow of my deathless prose. A special thanks to Clive Cussler who taught me during our NUMA Files collaboration to strive for a fresh point of view and avoid writing clichés like the plague. Oops! Many thanks to John and Shannon Raab at Suspense publishing for this opportunity to bring forth my first solo effort since the NUMA Files. I especially appreciate Shannon’s enthusiasm, astute editorial and art sense, and her help in navigating my way around the new world of e-books and blog chats. And thanks to my wife Christi for constantly reminding me during those down spells that I am better than I think I am.
“Few adventures in pursuit of myth were more seductive than the quest for the mythical kingdom of Prester John.”
“How often in his long conversations with travelers and seafarers Prince Henry must have heard that name, Prester John. The search for this long-dead, or non-existent, monarch played as important a part in the history of navigation and discovery as the quest for the philosopher’s stone in the history of chemistry.”
PROLOGUE
The desert monster appeared in a glittering vortex of golden dust.
The caravan’s lead scout saw the creature first. The scout had been riding a hundred yards ahead of the mile-long column of horses, camels, merchants and religious pilgrims. His head cover was pulled down over his forehead and wrapped around the lower part of his face. He was bent over the neck of his horse, squinting through the narrow opening as he scoured the high desert for the tracks of previous caravans.
The moaning wind had ramped up to a sudden squall, creating a dancing curtain of whirling dust devils. The movement caught the scout’s eye. He lifted his head and saw an amorphous shape loom in the diffused sunlight, waving its appendages like the sails of a windmill.
The hulking form that emerged from the swirling cloud was bigger than the average-sized man. The head was silvery and flat on top. The face was a fiery orange-red. Metallic scales covered the body.
As the thing staggered toward the scout, it emitted a bellow like a wounded bull.
The scout was a seasoned warrior, but the tortured wail was like nothing his ears had ever heard. The hair bristled on the back of his neck and a bird-like squawk escaped from deep in his throat.
Unnerved by the blowing dust wraiths, the horse let out a pitiful whinny and reared up in fright, pawing the air with its hooves. The scout clamped his legs onto the horse’s haunches and shouted for help.
The quartet of Persian mercenaries at the head of the caravan heard the wind-muted cry and saw the threatening figure advancing through the blowing sand. Four curved swords snicked from their leather scabbards.
With the guard sergeant taking the lead, the Persians swept past the scout. As the warriors closed in for the kill, the intruder stopped in its tracks, teetered as if being tugged in a dozen directions, took a step, stopped again and toppled over backwards.
The sergeant reined in his horse and slipped from his saddle. He cautiously approached the immobile hulk and lowered his sword. The creature lying on the sands was not a monster. It was a man. Or what was left of a man.
Master Philip was in a foul mood. The special emissary of Pope Alexander III hunched over a crude wooden table, quill pen poised above a blank sheet of parchment, a look of sheer agony on his face. He was struggling to find a diplomatic choice of words that would tell the Pope he’d sent Philip on a fool’s errand.
He had done his best to warn the Pope. Before leaving Rome he had pleaded with Alexander one last time. “I am the papal physician, not a soldier or an adventurer,” Philip had argued. “I have been trained to deal with black bile and phlegm. There are men far better suited than I to carry out your wishes.”
The Pope had rejected the impassioned plea. “There is no one I would trust more for this crucial mission, Master Philip. You have the qualities I most demand. You are my friend as well as my physician. We need help to defeat the infidels beating at our door. The fate of Christendom may hinge on your success.”
“All the more reason, Your Holiness, to find someone more qualified than I,” Philip had countered.
Alexander had said, “Have you no faith in God?”
“In God, yes. In myself, no.”
“Be not afraid.” The Pope had hung a golden cross around Philip’s neck. “I had this made to remind you that God moves in mysterious ways,” he soothed.
With the Pope’s blessing still echoing in his ears, Philip sailed from Venice across the Mediterranean to Palestine carrying a letter seeking an alliance with Prester John, the mysterious ruler of a far-off Eastern kingdom. Unfortunately, the location of Prester John’s kingdom was a mystery. Not long after arriving in Jerusalem, Philip came to a reluctant conclusion. His mission was doomed to fail.
It went beyond his personal doubts. He had talked to dozens of people about the lands to the east. Day after day he had sat in his modest Jerusalem apartment and listened with growing apprehension to their hair-raising stories of travel over vast distances through unforgiving terrain, and about their encounters with blood-thirsty natives and roving bands of robbers. The conversations had convinced Phillip that his earlier misgivings were not without foundation.
He brought the quill to the parchment and waited for God to move his pen hand. But the quavering voice he heard came not from the Deity.
“Someone is here to see you, master,” said his man servant, who stood in the doorway.
A bull-dog scowl came to Philip’s lips. “I’m busy,” he snapped.
“But Sire, I’m afraid—”
A huge hand encased in chain mail swept the servant aside like a piece of straw and a giant of a man squeezed through the doorway into the room. The stranger towered several inches over six feet. His face was hidden for the most part under a wild beard of fiery red. He filled the chamber with his bulk and unpleasant smell. A long sword hung in a scabbard diagonally across his wide chest.
The man removed a pot-shaped helmet from his neck and cradled it in his arms. Then he dropped onto one knee and pushed the mail hood back from his bowed head, revealing thick red hair that hung in uneven bangs over his forehead.
Philip felt as if he were in the presence of a creature that had sprung from a tale meant to frighten bad children.
His vocal cords seemed frozen, but he managed a loud whisper. “Who are you?”
“Thomas, son of Thomas,” the giant rumbled.
Philip’s gaze went to the red cross sewn onto the patched white tunic over the chain mail coat known as a hauberk. The symbol was the insignia of a Crusader.
He was regaining his composure. “You have taken up the Cross, I see.”
Speaking in heavily-accented Latin, Thomas said, “I would take it up again to defend the Holy Land.”