Fallen Secrets

By Mike Winkler

Mount Kilimanjaro, hackers, clandestine magazines, tribal communes, professional killers, and the Catholic Church. Searching the slopes of the giant African mountain, on what was supposed to be a routine graduate archaeological dig, Reyd Gunsmaater is thrust into a world of ancient rivalries, fallen immortals, and closely-guarded secrets. The pawn in a deadly game between two epically powerful men, Reyd turns the tables on the ancient princes of history. Poised at the turn of the 21st century, Reyd’s decisions will change the course of mankind forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Winkler
• Release date: Jul 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301977758

Mike Winkler

An engineer by day, Mike Winkler spends his free time creating new universes, imagining “alternities,” and crafting truly original characters. His adventures are large-scale and centered on human relationships, even if the characters are very tall lizard men, immortal warriors, or ultimate weapons at the end of time.When not constructing stories, he’s building solar power systems, practicing yoga, chowing down on a hamburger while surrounded by vegetarians, or off playing games with Meg. His writing portfolio includes a variety of fiction and technical works.Mike has been photographed with the likes of fellow author and partner Meg Winkler, various people in costume, and the Rosetta Stone. If he could meet any person, living or dead, he’d travel back in time to meet Winston Churchill on his worst day.

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Prologue

The Western Face of Kilimanjaro, Kenya

May 28, 1992

9:25 AM

Reyd was falling, and there was nothing that he could do about it. He could only hope that the things Monroe had told him were true – that falling down a mountainside wouldn't kill him anymore.

Damn him anyway!

Scenery shot past Reyd at an ever increasing pace. Time telescoped horribly as he tumbled down the rocky slope. He bounced a few times. He should have been living a world of hurt. Strangely he felt nothing. He must have been too shocked to really feel the pain.

Grotesque images sprang unbidden to his mind. There were visions of horribly mutilated accident survivors, amputees, and people in motorized wheelchairs... People did not live through things like this to walk away whole. Reyd would be a mess when he finally came to a halt.

Suddenly he wasn’t so sure that he wanted to survive anymore.

Chapter 1

The city atop Kilimanjaro

Nearly 5000 years ago

Just before sunset

Looking at the two men, no one would confuse them for anything other than what they were. It was not the burnished breastplates they wore, each emblazoned with the image of the sacred mountain. Nor was it the bronze swords hanging at their hips. They had a quiet readiness surrounding them and a hard appraising eye that missed no detail. It was profoundly evident that these men were warriors.

A third man picked his way carefully down the western slope. The nearly set sun silhouetted him in streamers of brightness. He had become a dark blotch against an infinite light. Kerric, who was a warrior like those who watched him, did not look back as he descended. He had gazed on the faces of his brothers in arms for the last time. Both the climbers and his watchers knew if they came together on the field of battle it would not be against a common enemy.

Beyond the walls of the City of Gabriel, many dangers came with the setting sun. By the long standing orders of Lord Michael himself residents of the city only ventured forth in large well-armed groups after dark. One could too easily be killed by a misstep upon sliding stones in the dark. Good men had been lost to a grim death down rocky chutes to the mountain’s base. Great black mountain tigers, made invisible by the darkness, stalked their prey in the deepest night. Their motions were soundless to all but the most practiced ear. Dark twisted parodies of men grubbed out their hostile lives in the lowlands at the mountain’s base. To them, trespassing was an offence worthy of summary execution. For Kerric, the rules were different.

His motion down the perilous trail showed the confident grace of an experienced climber on a familiar slope. His knowledge was such that mountain rangers who served the city would seek out his experienced voice before a difficult passage.

All of the nomadic tribes knew Kerric. Even in the places where his lord was not welcome, he walked as an honored guest. His strength was respected and his council was received with reverence by headsmen and kings. The mountain tigers knew another predator when they saw one; to them he was one of their own.

For all his skills there were still dangers here for him. Fear of death was not one. He had looked into its eyes too often to let it hold sway over him.

Kerric’s path was guided by more than his courage. He served a master greater than the Knighthood he had cast aside: his principals. For his beliefs, the dangers of the climb were warranted. No ill would befall Kerric on the mountain this night. Both he and his watchers knew it in some inexplicable way.

Lord? asked Ammac from his perch atop the city’s wall. Are you sure that it is wise to let Kerric go like this?

No Ammac. I am not, responded the tall, lithe figure beside him. But there are many decisions to be made of late. There is too little time to consider all of the ramifications of each choice, even one such as this. Taking the full measure of every action is a function of hindsight alone. We all do the best that we can with the time we have.

I see, responded Ammac without emotion.

If you had been lord of the mountain, the city, and the Knights, mighty Ammac, what would you have done with my problem had it been yours? Across our years here, Kerric’s words have often been a source of wisdom. I have sought his council when difficult matters have arisen; Lord Lucifer has as well. Would you have seen me put Kerric to death for his crimes of words? Could you, my powerful friend, find a better solution then to cast him upon the road?

No, Lord Michael, responded the larger man without preponderance of thought. "If you slew a Knight for speaking out against you, others would fall silent, but only in your presence. Their voices would swell to unprecedented numbers in the drinking halls and brothels. To slay one so valued by so many would be an act showing a great lack of foresight. It is better to make him an exile than a martyr.

It was good that you acted as you did, Lord. Kerric painted you as a man without real concept of his own actions. Who knows how many minds he would have poisoned against you? It is ironic that he accuses you of a lack of forethought. It is that very forethought to which he owes his life.

Imponderables abound, Ammac. You ask questions for which there can be no answers. Does it not strike you as a grander irony that we must make economy of time? It was just a short while ago that we came upon the Key. It gave us all the time in the world. What a fragile illusion time has become. With each passing year, we are forced to anticipate the future more and more. We must cram each moment as fully as we can, just to keep a hold of what we have built.

We have attempted great things, Lord Michael, responded his aid, and have succeeded at many of our attempts. Without the Key, we would have been beyond gray and old by now. Our bones would be gathering dust on some burned out soldier’s pyre, or adorning a Maasai chieftain’s winter lodge. There would have been no city of Gabriel for us to spend our worry on. The city never would have risen beyond the mere village of the stone huts of our birth. There is truth in what you say about the double-bladed nature of the passage of time, my Lord. For everything the passing of years has cost us, I believe it has given more.

Michael and Ammac continued to watch their former comrade as he climbed into the diming light, until he finally disappeared and his shadow merged with the larger one of the mountain itself.

Lord, Ammac said, "for each thing that we have accomplished, there has been a price. It is true that we rush from moment to moment in a way that we never had to when we were simple soldiers. For what we have paid, we have gained far more than any soldier has ever dreamed. Kings and headsmen of the mightiest tribes from all across the land stand in envy of the City of Gabriel. All desire the strength of the Knights of its Order.

Kerric has walked away from all that we have built, continued Ammac. He is the first crack in the solidarity of the Order. I fear more will follow. Once, each amongst the Knights swore he would stand shoulder to shoulder together until the sun burns out in the sky. Now I grow concerned that their promises will fade like the blossoms of summer. How long before others follow? How long before Lord Lucifer follows Kerric down that slope? Should he choose to leave Gabriel, he will take more than a third of the legions of the Order with him at his back. There are indeed dire times upon us, Lord.

Lucifer will come around; he must, said Lord Michael after a short lull in which both men listened to the sounds of the city above.

*

It was a marvel of stone work and metal. Its artisans were the most skilled; its destiny as bright as a shining stars. The battlements and towers could defend it from anything that could possibly come up the slopes of Kilimanjaro. Even without its extraordinary defenders it was as unassailable as it was beautiful.

Atop its highest towers were mounted great bronze horns. When they were sounded, their call could be heard in all parts of the mountain. They were more than a signal for the city’s defenders. The horns of Gabriel could be used to create beautiful and haunting music. It would echo up and down the mountainside like callings of a road-weary god.

Michael continued: "No matter how fervently Lucifer believes in his ideas there is nowhere else he can take them. There is nothing like the City of Gabriel in all the kingdoms, of all the lands of men. Not even Lucifer would divide the Order of Gabriel Knights. It would sunder the greatest of all cities over a small difference in personal philosophy. Nor do I believe that even the golden-tongued Lucifer could manage such a thing. Even if it were his greatest desire to split the order, he could not. There is only one Key to Attunement. Without it, Lucifer would be limited in the number of Knights he could ensnare into following his banner. He could attract men by the legion. Without the Key they would only be men, simply soldiers as we once were.

"We have no such limits, Ammac. We possess the city and the Key, so we can ordain as many Knights as we require. Any conflict with those who hold the city would be useless, for there shall be Knights whose number is legion. Of course it is possible that we will lose an occasional battle, but our losses only serve to teach us. Each moment of passing time makes the Order stronger, for each of the Knights grows greater as the years go by. Men come and go. Armies can be raised and forces marshaled, but men will never be more than men. Not without the Key.

Lucifer is our brother Knight, Ammac. He has battled beside us since the earliest days. Indeed, he saved both of our lives at great peril to his own at the battle of Temmir Xa. Do you believe that he could truly betray us? Even if you hate the man, you must forgive him. He is too great an ally and would make a terrible enemy. If we are forgiving then we will not force him down Kerric’s path by our own intolerance.

Lord Michael, responded Ammac, quickly going from contemplative to weary of the cat and mouse games that were the nature of his lord’s life. I leave these matters far wiser heads than mine. If you believe that you can convince him, I stand with you in unity. If we must act against him, I stand with you in strife. If we rule for a thousand years, Lord, and fight ten thousand battles, I will always stand loyal to your cause.

A thousand years, Ammac? Ten thousand battles? responded the Lord amused by his friend’s choice of words. I shall certainly remember to ask you again when the time comes.

The figure of the departing Kerric had long disappeared into the stillness of the nighttime mountain before Ammac responded to his lord’s jibe. Even the dark stain of his shadow had gone from sight.

Ammac gazed at the mountain. "Ask again in a century or a millennium and I will most certainly answer the same. My vow is that of a Knight. Unlike Kerric's, my promises are forever. If strife sunders the Order, or disaster lays low the legions, then we shall be an Order of two. Forever my hands and eyes will guard your back. Concern yourself not with me, Lord Michael.

My concern, he continued, is what Kerric will do with all the lands of men in which to roam free and seek to make mischief. You made him promise never to return to Gabriel in order for you to release him from his vows. I think that somehow, in some way, we shall hear from him again.

Lord Michael laughed then; it was the sound of a man who laughed too seldom. The expression of a smile did not seem quite as if it belonged on his face.

"You feel that Kerric will return to plague us, Ammac? The lands of men are large beyond measure. It is said, to both toward the North and West, there are seas that none have ever explored to either their length or breadth. Even with the power of a Knight, he is not proof against all the hazards of this life. Surely the world is large enough for us all. We will never encounter that one again, even if we all live to be a thousand.

Think about it Ammac, he is only one. How much trouble can he cause? Now let us return to the city. We do not wish to find that Lucifer has stolen the Order away from us with his golden tongue and bright promises, while we sat on a battlement planning for things that we cannot possibly predict.

Yes Lord. I do suppose that you are right.

Chapter 2

The Eastern Face of Kilimanjaro, Kenya

April. 10, 1992

4:12 PM

Hey, they never covered this in Modern Technologies class! shouted Trudy. She fumbled with the oversized hammer that the massive Connor tossed her in a slow arc. The students around her only laughed. Trudy was a technical genius. It seemed a suitable irony that she could not pound in a tent peg.

The scene was comical. Every one of the dozen men and women present on the African mountainside was young, smart, and well educated. In fact, each one of them was in pursuit of a Massachusetts State master’s degree. They were surrounded by the parcels and equipment that were being carted up the mountain by another group of students in slow carloads. The only way up from the foot of the mountain was via a precarious mountain goat track. It would take those students days to bring everything from the foothills to its proper resting place. At the rate that things were proceeding, it would take just that long to get the first tent standing.

This group was responsible for setting up the rudiments of base camp: tents, trunks of gear, and the satellite equipment. Trudy and Reyd had assembled the ultramodern technical array in less time than it took five others to extract the old Soviet army tents from their shipping crates. They only refrained from setting up the computer server because there was no place to put it yet.

At first everyone made the effort to conduct themselves as professionals. These men and women came up Kilimanjaro with the confidence that they could handle anything the mountain had to dish out. Reality resembled their confident planning almost not at all.

The instructions to erect the tents lay neglected, fluttering under Connor’s CD player like a wounded and confused butterfly. Of all the separate skills present, no one spoke Russian, the language that the instructions had been printed in. It didn’t take long for the construction group to degenerate into a pile of tired laughter and badly misassembled tents.

Maybe you’ll do better, said Trudy, as she underhand-tossed the mallet to Monroe, who was holding up one of the center post of the flaccid tent.

She used both hands to throw it and it almost hit the ground before it covered the fifteen feet to where he stood. The man was distracted and looking away as it flew through the air. Instead of another comical interlude of chasing the errant mallet as it bounced past, he half turned and caught the heavy unwieldy object with one hand. The laugh that was growing in the air as the mallet flew by died an uncomfortable death as the handle of the hammer struck his palm. The single economical move made it seem as if he had been catching flying hammers all his life.

There was only silence for a long moment.

Check out the man with the hands! Could have used a man like that as a wide receiver back at Old Miss., shouted the good-natured Connor in an attempt to revive the humor of the previous moment. Maybe the anthropology guy can show us how it’s done.

Alright, responded Monroe.

Any humor, momentary or otherwise, appeared to be completely lost on him. He abandoned the pole he was holding and let the tent fall entirely behind him. Reyd bowed elaborately as he moved away from the unplaced tent peg at his corner of the fallen structure. Monroe placed the peg loosely with one hand in the dry soil. Then with a single massive stroke of the hammer, he pounded it home. A circle of hoots and applause followed him as he pounded in the other corner spikes with equal ease.

What if we need to fit the poles in before we secured the corners? asked Reyd of the silent Monroe. We’ll need to start over again

No. The Soviets built their tents this way so they could be used without the poles as a ground cover in heavy winter conditions, or as concealment for snipers. The poles go in last, he responded.

Why didn’t you tell us that an hour ago? questioned Reyd

You never asked, he said as he tossed the mallet back to Connor who caught it with a beefy smack against his chest.

Man, Connor said quietly to another of the students, McKeting, as the former linebacker rubbed his chest where the hammer had struck it. Remind me never to get into it with that guy

By the time Connor and McKeting turned back to the tent, Monroe was gone, leaving Trudy fumbling with the collapsible tent poles.

Trudy, what happened to our tent peg savior? At the rate we were going without him, we were going to all end up sleeping under the stars for the next eighteen weeks.

I think he went after Reyd. What do you suppose they talk about? she asked as she handed the two men the tent’s poles. "Monroe—who isn’t interested in anything—and ‘the man who knows everything’? They probably just nod at each other, find conversation unnecessary.

Now, commanded Trudy in mock seriousness, you heard the man! Poles in last!

Chapter 3

4:53 PM

Reyd never heard the other man approaching as he stared out at the mountain peak, backlit by the setting sun. It made for a view that was ominous as well as beautiful. The entire mountain seemed to exude antiquity in a way that Reyd could not quite define. It was old like a dragon from legend; every passing year only made it stronger, more monolithically solid.

Incredible, isn’t it? asked Monroe.

Incredible, agreed Reyd without turning towards the other man. Did you know that there isn’t supposed to be a mountain here at all? There’s no tectonic plate activity under central Africa and nowhere near enough volcanism to produce a peak of this size? What a place! I couldn’t think of a better location to look for a lost city than on the impossible mountain of Kilimanjaro.

"The mountain is a special place alright, a place of great beginnings. Those who lived here called it I’Evan, or ‘The Great Mountain’. Not for its size, but because it was a place where great events transpired. Wise men have come to its peaks since time immemorial to contemplate their thoughts and deeds. Never in all the lands of men in all the years that have passed has there been a place like it."

Man, who are you? asked Reyd as he tore himself away from the view of the peak to look at his enigmatic companion.

Out of the three hundred grad students that applied for positions on the dig, only thirty were picked. Each of the students had to have a diffusion of skills to be selected. Monroe was an outstanding anthropologist as well as the only one in the troop who spoke the Maasai language. He was a study in quiet confidence. He was the only one who wasn’t tense during the weeks of waiting, as if it were inevitable that he would be selected. More than a few of those who didn’t make the trip were irritated as hell; more by his confidence than anything else.

Monroe smiled his small thin smile and shrugged. Who am I, Reyd? That seems to be the question I should ask of you. For as many times as I have heard the expression ‘he wrote the book on the topic’ it wasn’t until I met you that I found someone who had actually done so. Do they not call you ‘The man that knows everything’?

Reyd had taken a lot of teasing about the text that he had written for his master's thesis, In the Giant’s Shadow: A Study of Ancient Cultures in a Mountainous Environment, being accepted as the field guide by the expedition. He actually had three books in print, all technical journals and all on different topics. Reyd’s mixed academic background gave him a diffusion of knowledge that earned him the mocking title.

Reyd smiled at his companion in the growing dimness. Who are any of us anyway? he asked in