Read Online Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel by Edward M. Erdelac - Free Book Online

jolted. In the Yenne Velt , a great blue wound opened in
the soldier’s head, spilling light, and Jacobi dove right in, his form
contorting and shrinking to conform to the other man’s proportions.
    The Rider could see him, like a faint
outline superimposed on the trooper. The man blinked his eyes, shook his head,
and assumed Jacobi’s malevolent expression. He looked around at his comrades.
    “No!” the Rider shouted. He pointed
at the corporal. “Restrain that man.”
    It was too late. The trooper put his
side arm to the back of the head of the man in front of him and blew a wide
furrow through the top half of his skull. As the dead man sank to his knees,
his face a mass of blood, the men on either side of the trooper grabbed his
arms. One of them was Lieutenant Cord, who stared at the offending man in
disbelief.
    The trooper didn’t struggle, but
threw back his head and giggled ecstatically.
    “ Wie
viele männer, Reiter?Wie viele?“
    How many more men indeed? The Rider
bit his lip.
    Quincannon came rushing up, the
Rider’s gun belt over one shoulder, Kabede’s shofar under his arm.
    “My God, what is happening?” Manx
stammered.
    “Give them their stuff, Quincannon!”
Belden shouted.
    The corporal came over to Kabede and
the Rider and held out their weapons and gear.
    The Rider snatched his belt and
buckled it hastily on.
    Kabede took his shofar.
    “You should prepare.”
    “There’s no time,” the Rider
snapped.
    No time for protective circles, no
time for ecstatic chants or consecrations. The Rider could slip easily into the Yenne Velt , but he would not be at
his full strength.
    “Go then,” Kabede said, clapping him
on the shoulder. “Remember, today the soul is doubled.”
    The Rider nodded, and with a heave
of his breath, his eyes rolled up and he fell forward into Kabede’s arms.
    “Jesus!” said Belden. “Is he—”
    “No,” said Kabede, pulling him back
into the guardhouse.
    Taking advantage of Belden’s
distraction, Manx broke away from him and ducked behind Weeks.
    “Shoot them down!” Manx yelled.
    Weeks grinned and raised his pistol.
Belden backed away, his own pistol up, but Doctor Milton slapped Weeks’ hand
down.
    “Belay that, sergeant.”
    “What the hell are you doing,
Tobias?” Manx hollered. “You are a goddamned doctor. You are not in command
here.”
    “Something’s going on here,” Milton
reasoned. “Something I can’t explain.”
    “He’s right sir,” Cord chimed in,
struggling with the bucking trooper who had just murdered the man in front of
him. “Look.”
    The man in question stopped
struggling, and he nodded his head emphatically, staring in the direction of
the man the African was dragging away.
    “Ja.
Ja. Komm. Komm. ”
    Then he jolted, stiff as a board,
just as he had just before he’d killed his comrade, and fell limp in their
arms.
    “You recognize that voice?” Cord
said shrilly. “ Do you ?”
    Manx shook his head, grinned, and
waved him off.
    “You’re crazy.”
    “No, he’s right!” Milton said. “My
God…it was that German who came here a week ago. You spoke to him at length,
Manx. It’s him.”
    Belden turned away from Weeks and
Manx and the rest and ducked into the guardhouse, where Kabede had propped the
Rider’s seemingly lifeless body against the far wall of the hall.
    “What’s going on? What can we do?”
    Kabede stood.
    “Stay with him. Protect him. And get
me a horse, and five of your best riders, with poles, about a meter and a half
long, if possible.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “I need the staff.”
    Then he was gone.
    The Rider’s body fell away into
Kabede’s arms, but his astral form remained standing in the swirling colors of
the Yenne Velt .
    The Rider watched only for a moment
as Kabede dragged his body away.
    He could still perceive the doings
and sounds of the material world as echoes and silver shadows around him. He
turned to where Cord and another man held the possessed corporal between