The Dragon Queens (The Mystique Trilogy) Read online

  Now my father has taken my mother out for dinner and I’ve been left alone to choose which of our ancient foremothers’ texts I would like to read first. How awesome is that!

  As a teenager I am officially entering womanhood and so my mother’s decided that I’m old enough to read the journals for myself. Before my parents left for dinner, Mum gave me the key to the steel-reinforced cabinet that houses the ancient books and told me to take my pick.

  So that’s where I am now, in the study. I’m eyeing the journals on the shelf and I recognise those that Mother has read in part to me. Lady Ashlee’s journeys in the Sinai was my favourite, and I’ve also heard excerpts from the Sinai journals of Lady Susan Devere, and Douglas and Clarissa Hamilton, who were acquaintances of Lady Ashlee. I’ve passed over the journals written by Ashlee’s children for the moment, and I don’t dare touch the twelfth-century scroll written by the Cathar priestess Lillet du Lac. But now I’ve just found another huge volume written by Lady Ashlee regarding a journey she took to Persia to visit the site of the great Ziggurat of Ur.

  As I can’t recall Mother ever reading to me from this journal, I feel it to be the best selection. I shall go back and fill in the blanks of Lady Ashlee’s other tales at a later date. The thought of reading an adventure of Ashlee’s that I know nothing at all about is way too appealing.

  I wonder if the Crusader ghost will feature in this tale too? I hope so, as, unlike most girls my age, I still think my dad is the greatest guy on the planet!

  Anyway, here I go, back to the year 1856 as seen through the eyes of Lady Ashlee Granville-Devere…

  PART 1

  THE SEARCH FOR UR

  REVELATION 1

  GENESIS

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF LADY ASHLEE GRANVILLE-DEVERE

  Hawah conceived and bore a son named Qayin and she said, ‘I have gotten a man from the Lord, Sama-El.’ Next she gave birth to Qayin’s brother, Hevel, son of Atabba.

  Hevel was a keeper of sheep, whilst Qayin was elevated above Hevel and acquired dominion of the Earth. Hevel made offerings to the Lord from the firstlings of his flocks, and these were acceptable to the Lord, who approved of Hevel. From Qayin no such offering was needed, for he was of the Lord’s own Royal seed. And the Lord said, ‘If anyone should slay Qayin, vengeance shall be taken upon him sevenfold!’ And the Lord set his mark of Kingship upon Qayin—a cross of red—and thereafter Qayin dwelt in the land of Nodh (in restless uncertainty).

  Qayin’s wife was called Luluwa, the daughter of Lilith, who was the daughter of Nergal and consort to the Serpent of the Night, Sama-El.

  ‘This reads suspiciously like Genesis.’ I was astonished by the translation Lord Malory had summoned me to his private library in London to read.

  Richly adorned with art, treasures and furnishings from all over the known world, Malory’s apartment was located above one of the ultra-fashionable men’s clubs on Pall Mall, which was owned and run by the secret brotherhood to which he subscribed. I must say that I felt a certain feminine superiority every time I was invited to a meeting there, even though, as a woman, I was escorted in and out via Lord Malory’s private entrance. It just wouldn’t do to have the brothers know that a sister was doing most of their top-secret work for them.

  I turned to Lord Malory, intrigued. ‘This implies that Cain was not the son of Adam, but the son of one of the gods, and contradicts the Old Testament’s claim that the line of kingship descended from Seth, Eve’s third son.’

  ‘Yes, it does, doesn’t it?’ The stately old man grinned at me, well pleased by my first observations. ‘If it proves to be authentic and the translation correct, then this text will validate the beginning of the Grail bloodline, from which we are both descended.’

  ‘Where on Earth did you acquire this?’

  ‘My dear Lady Suffolk, I am not at liberty to disclose my source,’ Lord Malory teased. ‘I present this text to you in the hope that, with your psychic expertise, you may be able to comment on whether you perceive it to be authentic.’

  I shook my head; he was asking the impossible. ‘Obviously, this is an English translation of the original, which must be Egyptian? Or Babylonian, perhaps?’

  ‘The original text is Sumerian,’ Malory finally admitted. ‘And this version of events is consistent with that of early Jewish Midrash text, as taught by the Qabalistic masters. We believe this earlier text could even be the source of the later doctrine, before it was corrupted in the Old Testament.’ Malory stood and approached a set of shelves filled with books and old parchments.

  ‘Sumerian text?’ I gasped in excitement, as Lord Malory selected a rolled-up parchment and passed it to me. ‘How fascinating!’

  I unrolled the parchment as the lord poured the tea. The rubbing it held took my breath away. I knew several ancient languages, and although these picture symbols were completely baffling to me, that did not lessen my awe at laying eyes upon some of the oldest script known to mankind.

  ‘What does your instinct tell you now?’ Malory prompted expectantly.

  I ran my fingers lightly over the text and received flashes of a desert landscape. ‘A woman did this rubbing,’ I said. ‘She is very excited by this find and believes it to be authentic.’

  ‘But what of the original scribe? Do you perceive anything in that regard?’

  I focused intently for some time upon the parchment, but eventually had to concede failure with a shake of my head. ‘No, nothing. I would have to lay my hands upon the column from which this rubbing was taken.’

  Lord Malory appeared disappointed but not surprised.

  ‘I feared that would be the case. Ah well,’ he returned to his seat, ‘all things come to those who wait.’ He took a few sips from his teacup whilst he contemplated his predicament and then added, ‘That parchment represents only a small portion of the texts that are currently being unearthed.’

  I realised that the lord was trying to arouse my curiosity further. ‘Really?’

  He nodded. ‘Obviously, we are eager to verify and document the scripts before the church gets wind of our discoveries.’

  ‘And buries them in the Vatican archive along with every other text ever unearthed that doesn’t agree with the church’s account of history.’ I smiled as I considered the church’s reaction to the entire Old Testament being contradicted by a text that predated anything from which their doctrine had been derived. ‘Would you not consider sending me to this site to verify and document the finds of the excavation?’ I offered.

  Malory’s disappointment abruptly vanished. ‘You would consider undertaking such a journey? All expenses paid, naturally…and you would be handsomely rewarded for lending your expertise to our cause.’

  I shrugged, indifferent to the money, but enchanted by the notion of the adventure. ‘It would not be the first such journey I have embarked upon.’

  ‘But your husband? Your family?’ He raised what he considered to be my obstacles.

  ‘My family are fully capable of functioning without me for a time,’ I assured—my youngest child was now aged ten, the oldest, twenty. ‘But perhaps you might consider revealing my destination before I agree to this assignment? Or does the brotherhood dictate that you would then have to kill me?’ The Sangreal adhered to a strict code of secrecy.

  Malory was amused by my jest and his oversight. ‘The excavation is taking place in Persia, on the site of what it is believed might be the ancient city of Ur.’

  ‘Sounds intriguing!’ I sipped my tea, trying to contain my excitement. I had not travelled abroad in twenty years and at the age of thirty-nine I felt ripe for another adventure. Victorian England was a repressive, boring place for one with my unusual interests; a trip to the Near East would be a welcome change of scenery. ‘I shall require a little time to ponder the proposal,’ I added.

  ‘Of course.’ Malory seemed delighted that I was even contemplating the quest. ‘You do your mentor proud, I feel.’

  My governess, Lady Charlotte Cavandish, had been the on
ly woman ever inducted into the Sangreal Knighthood. I had refused Lord Malory’s many kind offers to become the second female member of the secret brotherhood, but I had been happy to consult on many an otherworldly issue over the past twenty years of our association.

  I finished my tea and rose to take my leave. ‘We shall speak again soon.’

  ‘Before you go, Lady Suffolk, I have something for you.’ The old gentleman pulled from his pocket an envelope sealed with red wax. ‘I was going through some of our archives the other week and I found this.’

  I understood this to mean the archives of the Sangreal Knighthood and my curiosity was piqued. ‘A gift, my Lord Malory?’

  ‘It is a gift, in so far as you may never have known of its existence had I not dug it up. You see, I was cataloguing some new additions to our collection when I came across an entry that stated that this envelope contains a piece penned by your mother, thirty-one years ago.’ He passed the envelope to me, the outside of which was marked only with a number.

  I was eight years old, I thought as I accepted the gift with awe and also with loathing, for 1825 was the year I had been committed to a mental institution. My mother had become ill and withdrawn during the episode, but that was all I knew of her state of mind during that darkest time of my young life. Perhaps this piece would shed some light on her thoughts.

  ‘But why should something my mother wrote have been confiscated by your order?’ I asked.

  ‘As I was not Grand Master at the time, I am afraid I cannot tell you.’ Lord Malory sounded sincerely sorry about that. ‘What I do know is that it was your father who brought the document to light after Lady Suffolk’s death.’

  My father, Lord Suffolk, now also passed on, had once confessed to me that he had been involved with the Sangreal Knighthood around the time he married my mother. However, he claimed to have cut all ties with them after being subjected to a secret rite on his wedding night, during which he believed he had been drugged.

  ‘How odd,’ I said, then frowned as I observed that the wax seal on the back of the envelope had not been tampered with—but whether the document had been sealed after submission or before, Lord Malory could not advise.

  I could scarcely believe that the Grand Master would pass on an uncensored document to a nonmember of the order, and a female at that!

  ‘For whatever reason this document has come into the hands of your chapter, surely it must contain information worthy of your code of secrecy?’

  ‘Most likely,’ Lord Malory agreed. ‘But I trust that if it contains anything I should know about, you will let me know.’

  ‘But as Grand Master you could have read this.’ I was puzzled by his restraint.

  ‘If it were a document meant for reference, then it would not have been sealed,’ Malory said. ‘My feeling is that this document is personal in nature, and I do not wish to pry into the private affairs of my very dear friends.’

  I appreciated that Lord Malory considered me a dear friend and yet I had to mock him. ‘I was under the impression that no one born into my bloodline had any private affairs that your order did not get wind of.’

  Lord Malory was amused and did not refute my statement. ‘Then you may feel all the more honoured by my gift, Lady Suffolk.’

  REVELATION 2

  THE NAME OF THE FATHER? THE NAME OF THE SON

  ‘The name Levi is derived from the Latin word meaning “light”, as are the words “levitate” and “levitation”. The name has a more ancient association with the Priests of Levi—the designated guardians of the Ark of the Covenant. According to written descriptions, the Ark weighed over a ton and, as it was reportedly lifted on two wooden shafts by only four men, it is suspected that levitational powers were employed.’

  This was the insight that Lord Malory had awarded me some seventeen years ago, when my eldest son, barely three years of age at the time, had informed my husband and myself that his name was not Thomas—as he’d been named after my father. Our son insisted that his name was Levi.

  The moment Lord Malory informed me of the history of my three-year-old son’s unusual choice of name for himself, I had immediately realised why it was so appropriate.

  My journey to Sinai had been motivated by the dying wish of my dear Lord Hereford, the man I almost married. The day before his unexpected death, he entrusted me with a vial filled with a remarkable gravity-defying substance known to the ancients as Thummim-Schethiya, the Highward Fire-Stone, the Star. Hereford’s dying wish was that the vial be returned to its place of origin, a mount named Serabit in Sinai, where he had once led an archaeological dig in his younger days. During the journey I discovered that the smallest dose of the vial’s contents temporarily boosted my psychic powers considerably, enabling me to accomplish impossible feats. I’d taken several doses of the Star substance before I discovered that I was pregnant with Levi. The Star vial had also proven to be one of two keys that unlocked one of the two Arks that had been fashioned on Mount Serabit.

  With so many subtle connections to the East and the Ark, it was plain to me that Levi’s choice of name was far more apt than he could possibly have realised as an infant.

  Levi was on my mind during the carriage ride between Malory’s city abode in London’s West End and our own. I knew that the moment my eldest child found out that I was considering another epic voyage to the East, he would do all within his power to ensure that he accompanied me. And Levi would find out.

  I suspected that my son was more psychically nimble than I, and I am considered to be the foremost psychic in the country by those in the know who value such insight as I can provide. However, I taught Levi from a young age not to divulge the extent of his talents to anyone, including his father and myself.

  Levi had always had a strong fascination for the Holy Land and Egypt. Although a fellowship at Cambridge in ancient languages had postponed his dream of travelling there, our son was more familiar with the languages, history, myths and geography of the Holy Lands than he was with their English equivalent. I was fairly sure that although my husband would protest me taking up this quest, he would never forbid me to go. Whether my dear Lord Devere was going to allow our son to toss away his fellowship in order to go adventuring with me was quite another matter.

  We were in London for the Easter holiday and I expected Levi’s arrival at our London residence in St James some time tomorrow afternoon. That gave me a day to broach the subject of my journey with my husband, before Levi began complicating the issue. Upon my arrival home I was gratified to find myself at liberty. Our butler, Tibbs, informed me that my two daughters were out visiting their cousins in Hyde Park, and that my youngest son had accompanied his father into town. I requested tea in the library and there I sat, holding Lord Malory’s gift in my hand. One half of me was excited by the prospect of reading something my mother had penned, as we had never been very close. The other half of me recoiled at the thought of revisiting that dark time in my life, for although I had dealt with many of the emotional aspects and horrid memories of that episode, it was still prone to upset me.

  ‘Well, better to be upset now, in private, than to waste my energy wondering about the contents of this envelope.’ I broke the seal and opened the document, which was a few pages in length.

  The account began solemnly.

  I am dying of anguish and guilt. History will applaud my crime against my family as an integral part of human evolution and thus I shall be blameless and deemed a saint. I feel that I can sympathise with how Our Lady Mary must have felt as she witnessed her child’s crucifixion, for her life and mine have many parallels.

  My daughter has been committed to a mental asylum and there is naught I can do to save her, unless I confess my infidelity to my husband. In retrospect, I am so ashamed of my seduction at the hands of an angel on the night I wed my Lord Suffolk that I cannot bring myself to speak of it. Thus I shall confess all on this paper, that I might give it to my lord and convince him that our daughter is not to blame for her
psychic attributes. I am to blame.

  My certainty stems from knowing that ancient blood runs through my family line, which has flowed down from the Dragon Queens of the Ancient East and through the ages to me via my Pictish foremothers. The Dragon Queens are said to have been the consorts of angels, whose offspring ensured human bodies fit for an angel to inhabit. Even with the strictest intermarriage laws, the bloodline has become diluted through the aeons, and so every now and then a female of the Dragon bloodline mates, on a spiritual level, with one of these angelic beings. The issue from this union reintroduces the angelic genetic material into the human genetic code, whereby angels can continue to reincarnate into human form and instigate the ground work for the evolution of our species.

  As Ashlee is the issue of such an event, she may well be an angel incarnate, as will be many who descend from her. This explains her superhuman abilities and her diverse interests.

  I am not insane. I would prefer insanity, for the condition would mean that I had not lied to my husband for all these years and my daughter would be as carefree as other girls her age. My judgement was swayed by the extensive greatness of the plan for humanity…I felt small and insignificant and submitted to it. The older members of my family, whom I respected and trusted implicitly, were the masterminds of my indiscretion. What would have become of me had I rejected their design? Not that I had warning of the event, any more than my dear husband did; I learned what I know of our family secret during and after the rite.

  My wedding began as most marriages of privilege do: with a church ceremony and a lavish breakfast with family and friends. This took place at the Granville estate in Suffolk. The match of Lord Suffolk and myself was greatly welcomed by our peers, and at the time I knew not the full reason why. I suspect now that my Lord Suffolk had been inducted into the secret knighthood to which my male relatives belong; in which case, my husband-to-be would have been offered some insight into the mysteries of the bloodline we share—his family line more distantly than my own.