An Everlasting Quest Volume 2 Two Tales of Adventure

By Cedric Daurio11

This book includes two novels that have the following common features:

They are all-time action and adventure stories, historical suspense thrillers, and they include  traveling far and wide and exotic environments. They all take place in different geographical environments and time frames.The novels included are.

End of the Game in Venice

A breathtaking thriller whose plot is littered with enigmatic keys. Ruthless struggle for possession of mineral wealth in Africa. A bloody rivalry of centuries between descendants of medieval Cathars and crusaders resurrected in the XXI century.

The action moves from the Seychelles Islands to Bombay, Carcassone and Montsegur in the Languedoc ending in Venice in the middle of the famous Carnival. Part of the historical fiction genre End of the Game in Venice is a novel of suspense whose dizzying pace will keep you suspended in the air from the beginning.

The Japanese Pianist

Romantic thriller that will catch you in its ascending rhythm until its vertiginous end. When moving to New York a Japanese pianist lives her sweet romance while making certain personal decisions that will gradually introduce her into a world where Oriental terrorist sects that use mass destruction methods battle with Japanese intelligence services. The bets are increasing and the resulting whirlpool leads to a hallucinatory outcome.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oscar Luis Rigiroli
• Release date: Feb 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201142506

Cedric Daurio11

Cedric Daurio is the pen name a novelist uses for certain types of narrative, in general historical thrillers and novels of action and adventure.The author practiced his profession as a chemical engineer until 2005 and began his literary career thereafter. He has lived in New York for years and now resides in Miami . All his works are based on extensive research, his style is stripped, clear and direct, and he does not hesitate to tackle thorny issues.C. Daurio writes in Spanish and all his books have been translated into English, they are available in print editions and as digital books.

Book preview

An Everlasting Quest

Volume 2

2 Tales of Adventure

Cedric Daurio

Copyright © by Oscar Luis Rigiroli. All rights reserved. Neither this book nor any part of it may be reproduced or used in any form without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Published in 2022 in the United States of America

It is a work of fiction. The names, characters, companies, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious way. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, or real events is pure coincidence.

This box-set includes two novels that have the following common characteristics.

All-time Action and Adventure

Historical Suspense Thrillers

Traveling far and wide

Exotic Environments

It is part of a collection that includes the recently published title An Everlasting Quest.

Table of Contents

End of the Game in Venice

The Japanese Pianist

From the Author

About the Author

Contact the Author

About the Publisher

End of the Game in Venice

Table of Contents

Cast of characters

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Epilogue

Cast of Characters

Alisha Shankar Chand: Young Indian woman of high caste.

Vijai Anand Chand: Father of Alisha, descendant of the Rajas of Bilaspur.

Romain Mercier: Geologist of Canadian origin.

Jack Brody: American millionaire, skipper of the Etoile yacht.

Gaurika: Jack Brody's Indian Bride.

Charuni and Bashira: Sudanese girls aboard Jack Brody's yacht.

Zhang Wei: Pretended Chinese trader in forestry products.

Yashodar Virendra: Friend of Romain Mercier, established as a tailor in Mumbai.

Berthe Gabriac: Mother of Romain Mercier.

Bertran Rostanh: Owner of a tobacconist in Carcassonne.

Adhemar Trencavel: Antiquarian in Carcassonne. Grand Master of the Holy and Venerable Brotherhood of Perfect and Good Cathars Hommes.

Berengar Monferrier: Chancellor of the Brotherhood.

Aulric de Terrailh: Seneschal of the Brotherhood.

Michel Dupont: Captain of the National Police of France.

Roger Maysonet: Captain of the French National Gendarmerie

Olivier Chenier: Commander of the French National Police.

Davide Bressan: Lieutenant of the Arma dei Carabinieri in Venice.

Giuseppe Bertone: Captain of the Carabinieri, chief of Bressan.

Andarbek: Former colonel of the Chechen army.

Introduction

Montsegur, Occitania, France. March 1244

Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.

(Kill them all, God will separate His people)

The Chevalier Arnaud des Casses entered the vast room where the women were doing their needlework, but the nervousness was evident and predictable completing a two-week period in which the siege was narrowing on the doomed citadel and clouds hovered over the remnants of the ancient Cathar nobility who resisted abjuring their faith and traditions. The smoke from the Inquisition bonfires had already covered the fields of southern France. The crusade against the Cathars that had begun years before under the direction of the brutal Simon de Montfort was already concluding with the fall of the last bastions. The Seneschal of Carcassonne and the Archbishop of Narbonne had besieged the city of Montsegur with an army of ten thousand soldiers and there was no power that could confront them.

The Chevalier des Casses set his voice on the murmurings of the women so that silence seized the hall. Des Casses went straight to the point.

The Council of Perfects has ordered that all children up to twelve years old be evacuated from the city with immediate effect. The mothers who are breastfeeding should accompany their children and other thirty mothers will be selected to accompany the infants. I know this separation will be terribly painful but we must safeguard our seed and our lineages so that our faith will not be lost in the terrible days that will follow. We also know that those women who are selected will be reluctant to leave their husbands but they must fulfill the task entrusted to them because children need adult guidance.

De Casses walked to the center of the room and had to overcome his emotions to continue his speech.

Thirty carts will leave the city tonight, escorted each by a knight and six soldiers. Children and mothers will travel there.

Tears and sighs had become shrieks as the ladies realized they would have to abandon their children to save them from a horrible fate that the bonfires anticipated.

That night the caravan of wagons departed. The Chevalier Arnaud des Casses supervised the exodus accompanied by the Perfects Raymond Agulher and Guilleme Aicard. Tears bathed the cheeks of the rough men as they watched the children ascend to the sinister wagons to proceed in an unknown direction, lead only by the hand of God.

With his usual sagacity, Aicard asked.

What do those three carts that are at the end of the caravan contain? I do not see any children or women in them.

I have not been informed, Replied Casses. Nor do I want to ask.

The shadows of parents greeting their children for the last time moved on the ground projected by a few torches that threw a minimum of light to not warn the besiegers of the maneuver.

And so, quietly and with great grief the carts caravan departed to transport their precious human cargo across Aquitaine and Languedoc, south to Navarre and Catalonia and east towards Piedmont and Lombardy up to Milan.

Unknowingly, those children were carriers not of a theology but of the seeds of religious and political freedom.

Prologue

Seychelles - Indian Ocean

His feet crawled painfully through the wet sand as his legs refused to take the next step, his muscles exhausted by the struggle of staying in the sea water, swimming toward the shore he had barely glimpsed, and finally walk along the endless beach, simply guided by the evanescent sunlight that gradually hid behind the low hills located to the west. His salt-red eyes barely discerned confused shapes in the growing darkness, and his brain scarcely managed to process the information they sent.

He did not see a large sea snail in front of his feet and stumbled with it rolling in the sand. At last his brain disconnected from his senses and fell into a deep mist. Losing the consciousness was an automatic mechanism of self-defense of the organism in that situation of total exhaustion. He had fallen on the edge of the shore bathed by the ocean, but by that time the low tide had begun so that his body was safe from the waters and the sand around him began to dry. The fate that had allowed him to save himself from the wreck and had accompanied him until then was determined not to abandon him completely.

Chapter 1

She walked to the beach where the five meters in length Zodiac raft was already set up, pushed it several steps into the sea until she was sure that there was enough water depth  under the semi-rigid hull, climbed aboard and paddled a few meters further into the sea. Alisha started the Yamaha engine with an ease that surprised her every time she did so.

Once the boat had sailed a few hundred meters away from the coast the woman straightened to the north and only once she had set the course did she look back. Then the girl glimpsed the white hull of the luxurious yacht that had landed at Banc de Sable, one of the uninhabited coral atolls that were part of the Admiral Group of the Seychelles Islands, although quite distant from the main island Mahé and the city of Victoria, Capital of the archipelago.

The yacht, called Etoile, belonged to an American millionaire named Jack Brody, a dark-haired character who loved luxury, yachts and sailing as well as beautiful women of exotic and varied ethnic backgrounds. In that particular trip he took with him his Indian girlfriend Gaurika, woman of a singular beauty in spite of its humble origin from an Indian  low caste. Jack had also included two young Sudanese girls, with black skin and volcanic temperament, who were nominally members of the Etoile's kitchen staff, although Alisha had her suspicions about their true roles. She had to be thankful that all of the female crew had kept Jack away from her, despite certain suggestive looks he'd directed. This was not surprising to Alisha as she knew she was an exotic beauty. In addition, the presence on board of her father managed to keep the American away from any attempt to approach her.

The young woman smiled as she reflected on all this, and the circumstances that had led her and her father to find themselves on the idyllic, desert beach of the Indian Ocean, away from the places where they were known. Alisha Chand had had in her short live quite a lot of travel and adventure activity. Born in Mumbai twenty-two years before, her parents belonged to the high castes of India. In fact his father Vijai Anand Chand was nominally Raja of Bilaspur, in the Punjab, although that nobiliary title was now only honorific, since the princely power associated with the same had been extinguished in 1948, with the eighteenth Raja, Vijai´s uncle.

Separated from his wife, whose family still held possessions in northern India, Vijai had returned to Bombay with his little daughter years before, carrying his personal wealth. In that city, which in 1955 had been renamed Mumbai, the man had been engaged in financial activities, increasingly lucrative as well as murky, which had forced him three years before to leave the city, the most populated in India and its most important economic center, while Alisha completed her secondary and higher education in Switzerland and then lived briefly in the United States. In this country, the most enjoyable period of her life, she had spent six months with her cousin Lakshmi Dhawan, also born in India but who had been acting for some years as a female FBI agent.

The girl sighed recalling all these alternatives in her young life. Although it had not been free from some trouble, she was allowed  to have an infinitely freer and more satisfying youth than the vast majority of young Indian women, even those belonging to the Punjab high caste.

Alisha set the prow to a small white-sand beach that looked promising surrounded by mangrove swamps whose vegetation swung with the gentle waves of the sea. When she reached it the girl turned off the engine and drove gently to the shore, leaving the raft on firm sand. She was busy with the maneuvering and unloading of the diving items she had brought on the raft, but her mind was warning her of something her retina had picked up as the raft approached the beach. When she was satisfied with the nautical activities Alisha headed for the part where she had perceived something that her instinct had marked as strange. She pressed the butt of a knife in her hand, which she carried in her belt, though she did not know well enough what she would need it for on that occasion.

When the woman climbed on one of the dunes that the tides produced and carried from side to side in the sandy beach she saw it. A dark bulk on the white sand, before reaching some coral rocks that emerged from the water and the mangroves that grew behind them. Her stomach squeezed at the sight of what she supposed to be a corpse, no doubt a shipwrecked hurled to the beach by the tides. The girl doubted whether to retrace her steps to avoid the unpleasant spectacle, since the seabirds that hovered in the air had the obvious intention of participating in a carrion festival, but then a pious feeling forced her to go ahead and at least find out whether the body had no life and was beyond any relief she could provide.

Alisha approached the body with great precautions; At first glance there was no movement in it which could resemble breathing or another vital activity. There were no foul smells and no evidence in the body of sea-bird injuries, so Alisha concluded that it had not been there for a long time. The clothes were torn and showed that under the tatters the skin was white. It was a man of considerable stature, lying on the sand on his chest, his arms forming a curious bow. If he had crawled on the wet sand before, the tides had erased all his traces.

No longer hoping to find traces of life in the body Alisha extended her right foot turning the body up, and at that moment she heard a faint moan barely audible over the noise of the waves. With great fear she reached down and brought her face close to the man's face. After a few moments she perceived signs of what could be internal movements. The woman meditated for a few moments, took out the marine watch she used for her underwater activities, dried the glass with the surface of her latex suit and brought it close to the man's mouth. After some tense moments she realized that the glass was undoubtedly fogged by the effects of an almost imperceptible breath.

The man was still alive!

Without hesitation Alisha took off the synthetic material suit that served for her diving activities but made difficult the movements that she needed to do now, being covered only by a tiny bikini.

She knelt near the man's head and started with the forced breathing maneuver many times practiced in training sessions but never seriously implemented. Alisha never knew for how long she was insufflating air in the body lungs but with great satisfaction saw that the presumed castaway began to breathe by his own means, at the beginning in a difficult way. Not knowing very well why she put his head to a side with the results that the man threw up a mousse of brackish water.

The girl remained anxious beside the body for a long time observing how the breathing was normalizing progressively. This result produced her a considerable relief.

Finally the alleged castaway opened his eyes and found his chest caught between two female thighs and a pair of breasts hanging over his face. Alisha heard the man mutter something in a language that seemed French to her but almost inaudible.

What are you saying? She asked in the same language, which she had mastered very well from her passage through the Swiss school.

The man cleared his throat and repeated now more clearly.

Am I in paradise? His mouth formed a kind of smile.

Alisha became suddenly aware of her almost total nakedness and her position on the man and sprang to her feet as the blush covered her caramel-colored complexion.

The woman was wondering for a while what to do in this totally unexpected situation and for which she had no preconceived solutions. One possibility was to leave the man on the beach and go to the yacht to seek help to carry him to a safe place, but reflected that in the state of unconsciousness the body could be dragged by the tide or attacked by seabirds or animals that might exist inside the thick vegetation of the nearby mangrove. Alisha became aware that she had saved the life of the alleged shipwrecked and felt somehow responsible for his safety until he could defend himself. The girl dragged the semi-rigid raft as close to the position of the body as she could but making sure that she could then make it to the sea again; then she attempted to load the body aboard it. She had to use her strength in order to raise one leg and then the other to the boat and then tried to lift the trunk. After almost half an hour of efforts the woman got her purpose feeling the sweat that slipped through her skin and hearing the muted moans of the man as his body was manipulated in this fashion, at times in a not totally gentle form. Finally Alisha placed the stranger's head on the bottom of the boat and then sat down to wait on the raft. She knew she could not drag the raft into the water so the only solution was to wait for the high water to do the job.

After a couple of hours the rising water set the boat afloat and Alisha waited until it was deep enough and only then started the engine. With the rocking of the waves the body of the stranger rolled to the rigid bottom and the woman only straightened his head and accommodated the limbs. Alisha looked at the man as she ruled the rudder. He was about thirty years old, was certainly an European or Australian, very tall and his hair was reddish, as were the beard of several days and the hair of his body. He was not overly stocky and on the contrary his body was rather thin. In all, a rather attractive complex despite the dirt, the sand that covered it and the stench of the sea that his body and clothes emanated. Then the girl looked at the beach that was moving away and wondered how the man would have arrived there.

At that moment the foreigner, still completely vanished, moved his body and his right hand rested on Alisha's thigh. The young woman's first instinct was to remove it from her body but a soft and pleasant tingling ran down her leg. Alisha realized once again that the man was asleep and decided to keep the situation that only she was witnessing.

After an hour of traveling Alisha could see the bay where she had begun her journey in the morning and the white silhouette of the hull of the Etoile.

From the yacht the crew members had already glimpsed her raft, and another similar boat had detached itself from the ship and was coming at full speed to meet her. It was only then that Alisha looked at her watch and realized that she had left the bay ten hours earlier and concluded that on the yacht everyone, beginning with her father, was surely desperate.

Chapter 2

Vijai Chand had been nagging his daughter for over twenty minutes. Letting steam off he had managed to calm his nerves, but he could clearly see the boredom in the girl's eyes and attitude.

You have exposed yourself to a thousand dangers to bring aboard this yacht someone of whom you do not know his identity, nor do you know how he came to that beach.- The discussion took place in Hindi. These waters are full of pirates, traffickers of all kinds, drug and arms dealers and people smugglers. The chances of him being a malefactor are greater than those of being a poor castaway.

Papa, if I had not rescued him and brought him here, the man would probably be dead now.

You really do not know if it would not have been better!

I cannot believe what I'm hearing! What remains of all the precepts of charity that you proclaim when we go to the temple?

We're not in the temple now. This is real life.

Alisha burst with rage at an absolutely unexpected reaction in a traditional Indian woman, but she was anything but a traditional Indian woman and Vijai knew it. For a moment he regretted being separated from his wife; indeed she was an Indian matron of great character who would had put her daughter under control. Practical man at last he concealed his anger and softened his tone a little.

You could have left the ... shipwrecked or whatever he is on the island and come on the raft to get help on the yacht. That way Jack could have decided whether to bring him on board or not. Thus, you have introduced into the yacht someone who may be a danger for all of us.

That's your real problem! Unlike her father Alisha did not lower his tone and continued speaking in an eruptive form. What really bothers you is that your buddy can get angry with you.

The father was going to answer in an exemplary way what he considered to be a total disrespect of his daughter when a knock sounded on the cabin door. Vijai gestured to the girl indicating to remain silent and went to open it. The immense figure of Jack Brody appeared on the other side, dressed in dark trousers, white crossed jacket and a captain cap. His appearance was perfect except for certain veins in his nose and face that betrayed his love of drinking. He quickly set his gaze on Alisha's spectacular copper body, which was still in a bikini since the argument with her father had prevented her of bathing and changing her clothes. The girl blushed once more, as she knew Brody's other notorious hobby, young and beautiful women.

Am I interrupting something? The Irishman shamelessly asked, who, despite not speaking Hindi, had likely heard the discussion inside the cabin. Without waiting for the answer to his rhetorical question, he added at once to the woman.

The man you rescued has awakened. Your father and I are going to talk to him.

I demand to be present at the meeting. I think I have rights. Answered Alisha to her father's alarm.

Jack thought for a few moments with an annoyed look and then said.

Well, let it be. Perhaps you can help because the castaway has a certain French accent and you speak that language very well.

The involuntary guest was lying on a couch in the yacht room, he was conscious and he was trying to sit on the divan with a visible effort. Gaurika, Brody's girlfriend and one of the Sudanese girls were taking care of the stranger helping him to sit up and pouring him a cold drink.

The helmsman of the yacht, an Indonesian who officiated as a paramedic in case of need, had determined that the shipwreck was in a high degree of dehydration and had to sip liquids in a gradual way. He had already performed cures on several wounds on the head and torso of the stranger in order to prevent infections.

Brody, Alisha and his father Vijai entered the room and were silent for a moment while the helmsman finished with his care and when he stepped back Brody approached and in a neutral voice addressed the unknown man.

They tell me that in your delusions you spoke French. Do you speak English?

The stranger nodded his head, coughing in order to clear his voice.

Well, that makes things easier. Continued the owner of the yacht. Could you please identify yourself, that is, tell us your name, your nationality and your occupation?

The man nodded again. Then making an obvious effort began with his response.

My name is Romain Mercier. I am Canadian, of the Province of Quebec. He spoke perfect English although with a barely perceptible French accent.

I'm an admirer of Montreal, except in the winter, of course. Added Brody in an effort to break the ice.

"I come from a small town called Trois Pistoles, located on the Saint Lawrence River.

What do you do for a living, Mr. Mercier? Jack continued his questioning.

I'm a geologist.

And how did you get to the atoll where our guest found you? The millionaire inquired, politely pointing to Alisha. Were you a victim of a shipwreck?

I did not travel by boat, but in a seaplane. We had left Zanzibar in the direction of Sri Lanka. The plane had a flaw but managed to land in the ocean. The pilot, the other passenger and I were able to put a raft to the sea before the plane sunk. We spent two days in the water without seeing anyone. At the end of the second afternoon a violent storm broke out and we were all thrown into the sea. I could hold myself to the empty raft that was turned upside down and spent the night in the icy water. The next morning I was able to straighten the boat and lay on it. I had nothing to eat or drink. I do not know how I got to that islet. At some point I must have lost consciousness. " Then he turned to Alisha.

So it was you who found me?

The girl felt another blush as she was questioned by the stranger. In spite of herself she had to recognize that the reaction was due to the attraction that man exerted on her. Overcoming her embarrassment she answered.

Yes, it was me.

My daughter not only found you but loaded you on her raft and brought you here. Said Vijai with a hint of pride as Jack Brody nodded.

Then I express my gratitude to her because it is evident that she saved my life, Mercier replied. Then he went on talking to the girl.

Did not you see traces of the raft on the beach ... or other things, belongings that I had brought with me?

There was absolutely nothing in sight. Alisha said as she regained her usual aplomb. No wonder, because we do not know how much time you spent on the beach. The tides may have taken your raft or other things offshore.

Again, thank you. The man called Romain said, but he could not conceal a hint of frustration.

Were there any particular objects that you miss? Vijai asked.

No ... Mercier replied in a way that seemed elusive to Elisha. Actually, my documents, money ... well, things like that....

Interest in Mercier's explanations began to decline when the passengers of the yacht saw that there was nothing extraordinary about his activities so that progressively Brody and his girlfriend Gaurika and then Vijai left the room to take in the fresh air from the deck. Only Alisha stared at the castaway who at first seemed distracted and then decided to give her an intense look. The girl knew what was going on in the man's psyche as she knew the effect her huge dark eyes had on the opposite sex. Standing at the farthest end of the room, Charuni, one of the Sudanese girls watched the scene in silence, so she was not perceived by Alisha nor Mercier.

Can I ask you another question? Alisha asked the stranger.

Of course.

What was a geologist doing between Zanzibar and Sri Lanka?

The man was obviously not prepared for that question and hesitated a moment before answering.

Well ... I'm in a kind of holiday period ... I'm going to my destination in Bombay, sorry Mumbai.

The look and overall appearance of Romain displayed a certain degree of anxiety to ascertain what effect his response caused.

Alisha inclined her head, nodding at the man's words, and left without further comment from the room silently followed by Charuni.

The girl leaned on the yacht railing watching the waves break against the coral near the shore and hearing the cooing of the waters on the hull. Suddenly she heard a voice behind her back.

The man lied to your last question and you noticed it.

Startled, Alisha turned and saw Charuni behind her, intensely staring at her.

Sorry? What did you just say?

Your question about Mercier's activities was adequate and predictable, and yet it produced a certain embarrassment and forced him to give you a false answer.

So far Alisha and Charuni had had little contact so that the young Indian was astonished by the direct interpellation. But she had already noticed that the black girl was a shrewd woman and was thus intrigued by what she was saying.

Please elaborate.

Instead of answering, Charuni said directly.

I'll tell you what I think Mercier could be doing on the island of Zanzibar, and on the neighboring mainland in Tanzania.

I´m listening.

In that country there are gold and also diamonds and other gems mines. In particular the exploitation of the latter is done illegally and clandestinely.

And you believe ...?

On the other hand, interrupted Charuni to continue her own speech. One of the most important world markets for gems is in India. It is possible that Mercier was heading not to Sri Lanka but to the Indian mainland.

Alisha pondered the reflection. In fact the gifts of jewels of the Indian potentates to their ladies constituted one of the main Asian and world markets for the precious metals and gems. Charuni's new words brought her out of her meditations.

You like him and he likes you. There is no doubt about that.

The Sudanese sudden change of subject found Alisha again out of balance. Her face was covered with blush once more, a phenomenon