Candle in the Attic Window Part 20

He smiled at me. "You know the Holy Writ?"

Ah, I thought. This is a test. "I study as a meager disciple. I learn all that I can. Will you teach me, Grand Master?"

"Where does it tell us the words to be used in the Baptismal prayer?"

I opened my mouth. The answer failed to come forth. He wanted me to quote scripture, yet I could not not for this quest. I had forgotten the words for the baptismal rite, for the Templars, being monks, were not allowed to raise children over the font.

"Do not fret, Brother de Ronnay. None of the sacramental acts are given specifically within that sacred collection. My purpose in turning your attention to these facts is to a.s.sure you that, while all truth has been revealed since the beginning, not all has been handed down ... to the lowliest of servants. Yet, we of the Order are obligated to protect these same ancient secrets! What do you know of Jericho?"

"I know," I thought about it, with astonishment regarding the implications he inferred, "I know only what the Book tells us."

"The City of Jericho existed before the Children of Israel came into this land from Egypt. Do you agree? Search your training."

"I do agree, Grand Master."

"The City of Jericho was old, with Sodom and Gomorrah, before Lot and Abraham arrived from Haran and Ur. Search your memories of these accounts. Will you not confirm what I have said?"

I could find no disagreement with his words and stated as much.

"Jericho was built on a town formed in the desert over a village built of wood and brick, over a desert hamlet constructed by ancients so old and forgotten that ..."

His wide eyes had fallen with the weight of his knowledge and listed away from me along with his words.

"Yes, Grand Master?" I prodded, after a minute of silence in which I heard his staff slipping and moving around us like snakes under gra.s.s, privy to these blasphemies. I could not abide that sound. "Grand Master?"

He did not look at me. His tone dropped. "I have sent four on missions to discover the secrets beneath Jericho. You see the box on the table against the wall?"

I looked and saw an ornate construction, wicker woven, lined in exquisite bra.s.s and touched with gold.

"It is filled with trinkets from the street: cheap jewelry typically sold to pilgrims on their way home from Mecca, easily scooped out. Beneath, you will find a bottom that can be removed if you press hard upon the far left corner. In the cavity beneath, you will find on papyrus the copy of a map. This map reveals an entrance found by a certain servant of the Lord."

I bowed.

As I followed his instructions, he said, "None who have gone before you have returned. You must know, Brother de Ronnay, that I am confident of your discovery. I have ... read fragments of texts testifying of those present in Palestine before the Flood of Noah washed the Earth clean of all evil."

I was shaken. "What shall I do?" I said when I held the scroll in my hand. I felt that I was, at last, reaching the heart of the mystery that the Pope wanted me to reveal to him. With this final mission, I would learn the reason for all concern, all Templar blasphemies, and the true goal of Knights. I suspected that I knew enough already, but going to Jericho would provide me ... with Oh, if only I had not gone! If only I did not know!

Forgive me. I will compose myself.

The Grand Master leaned forward and answered my question: "Bring me a skull."

I left with a detachment of turcopoles, native mercenaries working for the Order, who would be required for only one part of his orchestration: They would distract all eyes and ears while I traveled with a small contingent of black-robed Templar sergeants already present in the city.

Along the way, I thought of Grand Master de Beaujeu's final warnings. None of the previous brethren had returned. I had detected the faintest hint that some might have lived and that the possibility of their continued mortality was of greater concern to the Grand Master than the possibility of their terrible demise. I recall thinking that he seemed to mumble some words to the effect that the Knights of the Order would find any of those traitorous survivors and deal with them swiftly and justly. But I may be mistaken, for I was overcome by thoughts of a one-way a.s.signment that I needed to endure, if ever I would fulfill my instructions and purpose on this Earth.

Now I know that my death is absolutely necessary. This is my purpose in writing this dark epistle to all, that all mankind all human kind might be edified, might fear what needs to be feared, might thereby live with full knowledge of the beast and his infiltration among us.

I began this version of my account in reporting that I was charged to serve the Pope in Rome. I told you that I have changed this recording after great and terrible thoughts: The Church Father seemed to know something that he would not reveal, as if he wanted me to learn it for myself I can only guess at his purpose.

And I recall that as I left the Grand Master in Acre, he looked upon me with that same expression. He even grinned, as if everything he had told me had been constructed of half-truths and that he knew far more than he was revealing there. Did he know that I would die? Did he know the horrors I would experience in those black caverns? Knowing I had, unlike most of the brethren, learned how to read and write during my priestly duties, he told me to record any writings, even if the letters and drawings were expressly foreign to what I had heretofore experienced. Perhaps that skill was why he had chosen me. But foremost, I was to bring to him a certain relic a skull, the kind of which, he said, would be plentiful in that place, for so had lost legends reported.

We must, perforce, because the Saracens had ruled the town since the dread day of Hattin a century before, travel in secret and in disguise. Ere I reached Jericho, I felt as a lamb being led to the slaughter, a man sent from dungeon to execution, a chess piece about to be sacrificed in my conflicting masters' game.

Jericho was a beautiful town from the outside, though fallen in decline since crusader times. Watching it from a nearby hill, I could easily imagine how years had piled up dust and sand, fallen towers, natural growth, death, and more years, burying city after city until the mosques and churches were built.

To the Saracens, I spoke the peaceful words of snake and Templar, as taught to me by the Order, and was accepted within the rebuilt walls of Jericho as a Jewish pilgrim.

For three days, I fasted alone in a cell, following my instructions while the detachment sent with me waited in a secret camp beyond the city.

On the fourth day, I ate. As expected by de Beaujeu, I discovered the city's inhabitants in a nervous uproar regarding reports of bandits in the hills outside of the city. All attention turned outward, and mistrust of pilgrim visitors sought out those foreigners like myself inside Jericho's mighty walls.

Did a loud noise really topple this city once upon a time? I do not doubt it. But now I suspect with terrible seriousness that after the feet of Israel tramped and tramped and tramped around the city ... I wonder if something beneath their feet awoke. Something mighty and far more evil than anything recorded with clarity in the Bible. I wonder about the noise.

The Jewish house, wherein I had been preparing myself, was overrun with Saracens. The Jews who had, unknowingly, taken me in, were dragged into the street, questioned, tortured, and slaughtered. I would have been one of them.

But one who propelled me forth, while I was yet in my weakened condition after three days away from food as the Grand Master commanded, threw me into a wall at the side of the house, cursing me with a guttural tongue that makes the husky German barbarians sound like fine singers.

I attempted to speak the words of peace between Muslim and Jew, but I was. .h.i.t in the face, silenced, thrown deeper into alleyways, laughed upon by the crowd who could not follow.

Then I saw the steel raised above my foe's head. And I praised Mother Mary and all the saints, so grateful that my time had come to join them as a member of the Church Invisible. Yet, a part of me also recalled the mission I had received from the Bishop of Rome himself, and I leapt into action.

Before I could tear out the throat of my enemy, I heard him say the secret words of peace and treaty between Sultanate and Templar, followed quickly by words describing the need for illusion: "It is the only way to let you live! Do what I say, or you will be killed as a spy!"

I was a spy. A spy for the Pope. A spy for the Order. A spy sent from Heaven to live among men.

I told him none of this. He feigned domination over me, casting me into another alleyway and then through a door, which he quickly shut and barred once the game was over. "I will check the front," he told the darkness, and left me.

Then I smelled a woman. "Jacque de Ronnay? We meet again."

I bowed without understanding. "Lady de Siverey? You are trapped in the city of Jericho on this terrible day?"

She laughed at me. "I am trapped nowhere. Dress in these."

My eyes grew accustomed to the darkness as I pulled myself into the clothing of an Arab soldier. I did not have my sword with me, but the hilt of a desert weapon felt equally good in my hands. I could see de Siverey, her eyes alone peeking through exotic clothing appreciated most by sheiks and those who believe it sinful to see any part of a woman but the eyes. She smelled of rose oil, more powerful than a garden itself in all its splendour at springtime. And how powerful were those eyes! They bewitched me. I had no idea what a Frankish woman was doing in this city. Perhaps she had been captured by bandits.

She spoke as one with authority. "We must go now, while the distraction is at its height. You will walk ahead of me, my escort, yet I will whisper to you the way. Do not look upon me when we are in the street. Are you ready?"

"Will they not recognize the face of a Frank?"

She laughed again. In my heart, I knew then how men could become drunken on the sweet music pouring from a woman's throat. "You think too highly of Franks. No, they will be too busy to notice your heritage at all."

We left forthwith.

Not knowing beforehand where I would go, and not allowed to remove the map from its hiding place, I walked blindly through the city, sinking lower and lower along streets and staircases and alleyways as she whispered behind me.

We came to a sunken building. Inside, we pa.s.sed though three more doors, the buildings interlocked, and each stepping lower until no window light was able to warm a room with the sun. Then we followed a staircase down and met a man, to whom de Siverey spoke pa.s.swords that I could not have repeated if I tried. From this place, we delved into another, and another, following a ladder into a room no longer lit with lamps.

"Carry this," she said, handing me a Jewish lantern, and all I could think of was sin and fright. Her voice and this close intimacy with her foreign and forbidden to all monks and priests made me want to run away from this darkness and intrigue, to flee with her and love her forever. Instead, I watched her as she took the lead. I watched her as we scurried like rats through narrow pa.s.sages. I watched her until, at last, I realized my mortal wretchedness and infantile anxiety and weakness of flesh were vanquishing my spirit when I would demand it otherwise.

I fought a war within myself. I stopped looking at her. And that is when I saw the warning on the walls.

I did not recognize the Hebrew script. I could not translate the words. But I did well at deciphering the pictures.

I saw the light of heaven and the Holy Ark firing rays over armies of black demons. I saw winged beasts in the sky fighting angels I cannot describe the beasts to you, for they had, as it were, the heads of stars and the bodies of squid and the wings of torn dragons. They were like nothing I had seen or read about anywhere.

I was slowing. The Lady de Siverey berated me. So, I tried not to look upon these painted mysteries. I clung to both lamp and edged weapon, my hands filled so that when, running behind de Siverey, I slipped upon a sandy slope. I dropped straight through the hole in the ground that I did not see.

The lamp shattered before I could cry out in pain. The oil spread and caught fire. So that, for a brief time, there was plenty of light to behold this sunken place.

I was in a vaulted room with a doorway in each of three corners, each aperture easily fit for Goliath or as I now know something much larger.

Above me, I could hear de Siverey's enchanting laughter, a musical chuckle, pleasure. I never saw the Lady again.

I called for her. In whispers at first, then louder, and then in whispers again as my eyes watered before frescoes depicting the most horrible scenes.

On the wall, I saw men who were not men worshiping at the Mediterranean's edge. I saw a nightmare larger than the moon, black and indistinct now that the paints and tiles had faded so. It was a form of art unlike any made by man, but it was so old now. There was something Egyptian about the wings that filled all the sky from the South to the North, as if saying that Heaven was this: only darkness, a night with every star blackened out.

And then I remembered, in my quivering state, how the Earth was without form and void in the beginning. How, after the waters were separated from the waters and the land appeared, there was a time theologians and doctors, to my memory, never bothered to portray. I felt that I understood: This time was too terrible for man to recall, even after it was revealed to him in the Garden eastward in Eden. For after, there was a sea and there was dry land; the sun and the moon and the stars had not yet been created. Oh, there was light! Yes, there was light I could see on the walls that there was light. And there was gra.s.s, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit of the tree yielding fruit after its kind. But, as my training confirmed to my memory, the sun and the moon and the stars were created as signs and for seasons and for days and for years and set into the firmament "to rule over the day and over the night" ... but not until the Fourth Day.

I had risen, one ankle throbbing with pain that I dismissed before all my fear. I fell again. I was looking upon the Third Day, upon details unspecified in the Bible, and felt that this Day, this period of creation, must have lasted for aeons.

And who were these nightmares infesting the Earth before Man was placed in the Garden?

I had heard of dragons. These were not dragons. There were fiends cast from Heaven along with the Devil I imagined the angels depicted in the Hebrew halls now far above me, and the words of John the Revelator, who described Michael and his angels fighting with the Dragon and his angels. Was this what I saw? Were these ent.i.ties those beings who had been cast down from on high?

It was too simplistic. This place and its horrible secrets ran deeper. I did not want to know more. But the fire, which had spread and grown bright in the oil, was eating through it quickly and would soon be gone.

At the thought of being left alone here, deep underground in the ancient darkness, my heart pounded as if expending all of my life now before giving up the breath that had started it.

I found, in the rubbish of bodies heretofore unrecognized, the cloth and bones necessary to construct a crude torch. The bones were human. Why did I find solace in that? As I righted my traveling flame, my eyes took note of Templar red-on-white scattered among heaps of skulls with hair and flaking skin. I turned away from what must have once been a mountain of desiccated soldiers, swept aside as if by a great foot away from one portal. In each brick about the frame, I saw the faces of screaming men and women carefully etched and carved, like trophies of memory from bygone wars.

The fire on the floor died at last, though I managed one small torch from it. I pondered fearfully which way to go.

The hole above me was dark. I could not imagine the Lady de Siverey alone up there in those endlessly black pa.s.sageways, forced after her laughter of insanity to travel alone. But I also could not comprehend how easily she met these horrors and keenly knew the way to this pit. I could not reach the top of that domed ceiling if I wanted to. And the artwork staring down at me brought a whimper of childish panic from my tongue; I would not look up there anymore.

One thing was certain. The Lady de Siverey knew what I would find. Others knew. How many? Who else? The Grand Master? The Pope?

I thought at that time about the Bible, about the wisdom of the Church Fathers, about a library in the Vatican of which I had heard respectably rumoured whispers. Surely, the Pope at least had an idea of this ancient knowledge upon which I had stumbled. I reminisced about my enthusiasm and how my former teachers looked down upon it. I suspected that I was a fishhook, used by a fleeing Roman bishop to snag a fish of mystery or simply die in cold waters. I wondered, in that moment, if anyone on Earth cared about me at all. For I had also heard that often, crusaders were little more than troublesome sword owners, that the Church nudged them toward death in the Holy Land to free Europe for more peaceful living.

There were tears on my face. I thought I might die down here. And the thought of exiting this mortal life gave me reason to go on: If I was cursed and doomed to die, I would at least see behind this temporal veil and look upon the unspeakable secrets of the Earth.

But which way?

A spark inside me whispered that I still had a purpose. I recalled de Beaujeu's map and drew it forth.

The rough sketches began with the drawing of a triangular room with a doorway in each corner. I studied the lines, saw pa.s.sages twist beneath one another, enter what seemed to be halls so vast that entire castles might fit inside without touching the walls.

Only two of the pa.s.sages were sketched forth. The third had not been taken.

The third, I saw, was the one once blocked by a ma.s.s of bones and dead men that stood higher than my head.

I walked that way.

A new resolve took hold of me. In their apathy and humour, my masters had sent me into the grave. If I could, I would return. The Grand Master wanted a skull? I would find one for him, if possible, one that would reflect the horrors to which I had been witness; I would fling the skull at his feet and leave the Order forever. Let them hunt me down for breaking my vows. The Church wanted the secrets studied and carried forth by the Knights Templar? I would bring this map, my report, and any drawing or writings I could copy onto the paper. I would deliver my promises and then disappear with my knowledge, if they did not kill me first as a heretic. Either way, I could not see how I would exist anymore among men. Especially if any of these ancient beings still lived.

Oh, the madness! Again, I am ahead of myself.

I did not think about them living until I came to the place of the skulls.

It was as if the Grand Master knew the room existed. The chamber was octagonal, with dread corpses nailed to the walls in unholy admiration. At first, I saw skulls, but could not identify them as such. They were somewhat triangular, like the heads of a mantis which insect always looked particularly demonic to me. Each skull was as black as the things hanging on the wall, shiny like metal where lines of light reflected my struggling torch. Each was stacked with the utmost care. These demon heads were treated with reverence.

My eyes rose to what seemed to me hanging decorations, at first. As my eyes studied and grew accustomed to the details above me, I thought I was seeing the hung carca.s.ses of something like those winged monstrosities that fought the heavenly angels painted on the ancient Hebrew walls so far behind me. Could this be their slack remains?

What had the war been like? My belief that these creatures were cast down from Heaven fled, as I renewed the horrible image in my mind of the giant evil in the sea and the crowding worshipers on the beach.

The wings were staked, as I said, to the walls. Stretched as far as they could be, the wing of one beast touched the tip of another. And so it was, all around the eight-sided room, until they came together again.

I stared up at their heads hanging loosely over bodies of ama.s.sed tentacle that seemed to begin in the region of a mouth and ran to a nethermost point. It was then that I collaborated the images above me with the stacked heads along each wall around the room and knew that I had found my skull at last.

I reached. I grabbed.

In that instant, I spotted movement from the corner of one eye. My military training saved my life. I spun, dropped, yet not quickly enough, for a whipping tentacle lightly grazed the side of my face and sent my torch flying. I was on the ground, face down, the skull in one hand and the map in the other.

Also in that moment, a terrible screaming filled the room.

Almost as quickly as I hit the ground, I turned onto my back, drew my little Saracen sword, and looked up.

I tell you, I did not feel the pain.

It was only the screaming, and the distorted sight of those creatures on the wall, alive, writhing, flailing about, trying to reach my flesh, tacked to the wall and yet fighting to tear themselves free.

A great wetness like tears covered my mouth and nose.

Yet, I was more cognizant of their living alarm, horrified by any being that would permanently bond its own kind to walls and leave them positioned at the ready against thieves or invaders like myself. I could only imagine what their screams would draw into my presence.

The wetness ran to my mouth, and I tasted metal that wasn't there.

I needed to leave.

My neck became covered in tears as I rose, slicing at tentacles thrashing to catch me.

From one doorway, one pit of h.e.l.l, I heard a hurried rustling that made me think of wet spiders the size of horses from the frozen north of Europe.