Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel Read Online Free PDF Page B

bunch. Am I right?”
    “The trouble is,” said the Rider, “we
don’t really know what they’re capable of, or what their weaknesses are. These
aren’t like the shedim bushwhackers
you and I fought.”
    “Well that’s a relief, anyway,” said
Belden.
    “No it’s not, Dick. They could be
far worse. For one thing, they can project themselves into another man’s body,
wear him around like a suit.”
    “Jesus. What else?”
    “They have an army of walking dead
at their command,” said Kabede.
    “Walking dead?”
    “All of Escopeta at least. Maybe
every man, woman, and child in the vicinity,” said the Rider. “We saw them fall en masse down a mountain and get up
on broken legs. They’re slow, but they don’t feel pain.”
    “Anything else?” Belden chuckled
nervously.
    “Maybe,” said the Rider. “These men
are in league with the darkest powers I’ve ever run across.”
    “What are they, devil worshipers?”
    “Worse than devil worshipers.”
    “Oh, come on,” Belden cracked. “What’s
worse than a devil worshiper?”
    “What’s worse than the devil?” the
Rider said in answer.
    “You tell me,” Belden said.
    “I can’t, Dick,” the Rider said.
    How to explain The Great Old Ones?
They were entirely outside of Belden’s experience. They were outside of the
Rider’s own. He couldn’t fathom them now, and he had encountered one
personally. Best to leave them out, best to concentrate on the here and how.
    “Jesus,” said Belden, serious. “I
never heard you scared, Joe. Not like this.”
    “I am. I am scared.”
    “ Igzee’abaihier is with us, Rider,” said Kabede. “Who can be against?”
    “Is He? I wonder.”
    “Where’d you ever pick him up?”
Belden interrupted.
    “He picked me up.”
    “It is nearly sundown,” said Kabede.
“Mr. Belden, I wonder, do you have any influence with the guard?”
    “Let’s find out. Trooper Davies!”
Belden shouted.
    “Yes sir!” came the reply beyond the
door, and immediately there was a fumbling as the guard threw up the heavy bar.
    “I’d say so,” Belden said.
    “I wonder if my green bag could be
brought to me,” Kabede said. “They may search it if they wish. There are no
weapons.”
    The door swung open, and a youngish
private stood in the doorway, looking abashed at having just opened the
guardhouse door at the command of its occupant.
    “Uh,” he began, “Sergeant, I already
got you a pair of pants. I don’t know as I—”
    “It’s alright, Davies. I’m not gonna
ask you to let us out or pass me a file or anything. The man in the cell next
to me had a green bag on his person. Do me one last favor and bring it back
here.”
    Davies shook his head. “I don’t
think I can do that, sir.”
    “You can search it all you like.
Nothing in there but…” Belden trailed off.
    “Candles,” said Kabede. “Some bread.
A tin of herring and a flask of wine.”
    “There you go,” said Belden. “Come
on soldier, you can spare your sarge one last celebration before he’s booted
down the hill, can’t you?”
    Kabede went to the bars and pressed
his face between them.
    “You saw the knife I had on my belt?
You can have it if you bring me those things.”
    Davies shuffled his feet a bit. “I’ll
see if I can get it.”
    He didn’t look at them, but closed
the door and slid the bar back into place.
    Belden sighed and settled back down.
    “Where loyalty falters, common greed
prevails,” he said. “What do you need all that stuff for? I mean, if it’s a
candlelit dinner party you’re throwing me, I’m flattered, but they’ll come
around with better chow in a little while.”
    “We are not permitted to eat
anything that isn’t kosher, ” Kabede
explained.
    “What say?”
    “Conforming to Jewish dietary laws,”
the Rider said. Then, to Kabede, “When I was in the Army, sometimes I let some
of the commandments slip.”
    “In addition, it will be Sanba adma’I in an hour,” Kabede
continued.
    “The what?”