The Dove (11 page)

He pushed himself off the altar and turned about on his knees, sitting down on the floor with his back against the altar.  In his haste, he had left the doors standing open and the sun slowly aligned itself with the open doors, casting long rays of golden light into the aisle in front of him where dust motes from his passing, drifted lazily in the gilded shafts like the stars and galaxies of the immensity of space.  Konrad sat mesmerized by the simple beauty of this unexpected sight.  The full face of the sun dipped below the lintel of the door, almost blinding him and in the light, he thought he saw the outline of someone walking toward him.

The Knight of the Apocalypse blinked and squinted against the glare.  He pushed his long, dark hair back and looked again.  The figure was closer, dressed in a long gown that reached the floor.  The sunlight cast a shimmering glow around the halo of dark hair, but the face and features were obscured by shadow.

“Konrad.”  He heard his name and the voice that uttered it made his heart seem to stop.

“Lucia?”  He whispered the name and thought his stopped heart would burst.  The blood drained from his face and he felt cold.

“Konrad.”  She came closer and he could see her hand reaching out to him.  “Why are you here?”

“I came looking for my father.”  He heard himself answer her and then shuddered at the touch of her hand on his face.

“Your father is not here, Konrad.” 

He still could not see her face, his mouth was open and he could not breath, could not move.

“The gradal is in the pillar.  Take it with you, Konrad.  You will know what to do.  Keep it safe.  The Blood of the Communion is in the cellar of Ramsay’s house.  Take it with you, Konrad.  You will know what to do.”

“Lucia!”  He found his voice again and drew a ragged breath as she removed her hand.  He placed his own hand over the spot on his face where her hand had been.  “Come home with me, Lucia!  I love you!  I miss you!  Come home with me!”

The sound of her soft laughter made him smile in spite of the pain he felt in his heart.  It was as if he was losing her all over again.

“Take these things, Konrad, and when the time is right, we will be together forever.”

She leaned forward toward him and kissed him lightly on the lips.  “
Spes mea in deo est, Konrad
.”

He closed his eyes and a great sense of peace made him feel weak.  When he opened his eyes, she was gone as he knew she would be.  The sun, had already shifted and the long beams of light were no longer visible.

He sat on the floor with his hands now lying limply on the stone beside him.  His breathing leveled off and his heartbeat returned to normal.  So this was Vanni’s angel!  It really was Lucia.  Saint Lucy, they called her.  She really was here. Or rather, there or somewhere! He glanced toward the stone angel on the pedestal above the Holy Water font.  He could see her unmoving profile in the multicolored hues cast by the sunlight on the windows beyond her.

What had she said about the pillar?  The gradal.  The Holy Grail.  The Cup of the Communion was in the pillar.  He turned his head from side to side.  There were two pillars.  One on either side of the sanctuary.  They were both works of art in their own right.  Carved with scenes from the Holy Bible.  Faces and figures, scrolling vines and geometrical designs worked with remarkable skill.  He wondered that he had never appreciated the beauty of these two columns that helped support the vaulted ceiling of the church.  He had taken them for granted like so many other things in his life.

He got up from the floor and dusted off his dark trousers before approaching the pillar on the left of the altar.  Starting at the base, he worked his way around the carvings, following the deeply etched scenes of creation, the expulsion from the Garden, the death of Abel at the hands of Cain.  He paused to admire a pair of angels who were apparently bearing the deceased Adam away into heaven before continuing his examination of the pillar. The flood and Noah.  Jonah and Leviathan.  David and Goliath.  Sodom and Gomorrah.  Jacob and the angel.  He frowned at this depiction.  There was the stairs leading up to Heaven with angels ascending and descending. There was Jacob wrestling with the angel.  There was the angel bending over Jacob, kissing him on the lips with one hand on his forehead!  Konrad stepped back and rubbed his eyes.  He didn’t remember reading this in the Scriptures.  He shook his head and continued his inspection.  Another scene caught his eye.  An ancient alchemist’s lab on top of a mountain.  Great bolts of lightning were either striking the summit of the mountain or being emitted from it.  On the side of the mountain were the unmistakable images of the burning bush and the Tablets of the Law.  Why would someone have placed an alchemical lab on top of the Holy Mountain?

The pictorials extended to just above his head and then gave way to floral designs which gave way to geometrical patterns that disappeared into the heights over his head, but there were no hints here of the semi-pagan designs that could be found in another chapel that had been built in Scotland along these same lines at about the same time in history.  A certain chapel that had once belonged to Meredith Sinclair’s ancestors.  All the scenes in Mark’s chapel were strictly Judeo-Christian in nature.  There were no Masonic emblems or symbols, no green men or squares and compasses.  Nothing that he had seen when he had toured the other chapel.  The pillar flared at the ceiling, taking on the shape of a lotus blossom.  He leaned closer and used his fingernail to dig at the decorative trim around a section in which the evacuation of the Israelites from Egypt was shown against the background of the three pyramids at Giza.  The stone seemed chipped here as if someone had recently gouged at the trim.  The capstone of the Great Pyramid had rays depicted around it and seemed to be more deeply engraved than the rest of the scene.  He pressed on the triangle and the entire panel grated slightly and then swung outward on silent hinges.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”  He crossed himself and then looked inside the exposed cubicle.  It was empty except for a rumpled piece of dry-rotted linen.  Whatever had been concealed there was gone.

He closed the compartment and checked the rest of the panels.  Poking at different pieces of each scene, but he found no more hidden apertures on the pillar.  He moved to the other pillar on the right of the altar and began the same search.  These were scenes from the New Testament.  The birth of Christ.  The three magi.  The over-turning of the money exchangers in the Temple.  The Sermon on the Mount.  The entry of Christ into Jerusalem on the donkey.  The Last Supper.  Jesus dragging his cross to Golgotha.  The Crucifixion and the empty tomb.  Peter walking on the sea.  Saul on the Road to Damascus.  And then some scenes he did not recognize so readily and he had to call on his ancient history.  One scene depicted a fortress situated on top of a flat-topped mountain with steep cliffs.  Hundreds of people were leaping over the sides as what appeared to be Roman soldiers climbed the cliffs below them.  Could this be Masada? 

There was a scene showing Christ in the pits of hell, preaching to the dead.  The same Christ figure was shown seated with a group of disciples on the edge of a sea.  The disciples were all writing on scrolls.  One of them was shown rolling up the scrolls and another was placing them in urns.  A third was depicted placing a sealed urn in a cave.  Konrad frowned.  Qumran?  The Dead Sea Scrolls?  But the scrolls had only been discovered in the mid twentieth century and there was no mention of Qumran in the New Testament.  The pillar was as old as the church.  Whoever had carved these designs had known of the existence of the scrolls.  It was baffling and amazing.  The Knight had to push away the desire to investigate these mysterious scenes further and return to his search.

He returned his attention to the scene which showed the disciples seated at a low table with Christ during the Last Supper.  Jesus was in the center, breaking bread onto a large platter.  Beside the platter was a wide bowl full of liquid.  The Gradal.  Above the head of Christ was an orb.  The orb seemed to be covered with tiny designs, too small to make out.  Konrad pressed on the orb and again, the stone grated and swung open.  Inside the cubby hole was an object wrapped in black silk.

“All right!”  Konrad’s face lit up.  He removed the object very carefully and clutched it to his chest.  He didn’t have to remove the wrapping.  He knew what it was.  He closed the door over the cubicle and rushed back down the aisle with his treasure.  This time, he stopped long enough to close the doors and then walked quickly back toward the meadow.

Chapter Five of Sixteen

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour; And I saw the seven angels which stood before God

The eagle perched atop the brightly painted, but quickly fading face of the Great Sphinx, looking out on the Plain of Giza as if trying to see what the enigmatic stone eyes perceived that might have kept it interested for over ten thousand years.  Nothing moved on the plain below him.  Nothing except the inexorable wind that sifted the encroaching sands of the Sahara across the abandoned highways. Perhaps it was the desert, herself, that interested the ancient monument.  Perhaps it was the clear blue horizon or the undying hope that a lady Sphinx would come loping over the dunes any moment.  Here and there skittering movements of small desert animals distracted the bird’s attention momentarily as it scanned the blazing glare of the Pyramid Complex at Giza.  Gone were the tour buses and vehicles that had once abounded in this sight of one of the greatest wonders of the world.  The Great Pyramid’s restored casing blocks were stark white against the blue backdrop of the sky and the gold capstone was unbelievably brilliant with reflected light.  Away to the south a group of spiny creatures resembling the prehistoric ankylosaur wagged their way through the sand toward the river and a respite from the heat and the hope of finding some remnants of the dwindling hippopotamus populations for an afternoon snack.  These monstrosities along with other, even worse specimens were decimating the Nile’s normal populations, even dining on crocodiles when no hippos were available.  The eagle was in no danger of being devoured by the beasts, but it kept a wary eye on the clear blue sky.  It was probably just a matter of time before winged beasts showed up to add a new dimension to the terrors stalking the lands.

If anyone had come this way, they had most likely already succumbed to these creatures or found cover somewhere.  The hinged door located about a third of the way up the side of the pyramid was closed and from the vantage point of the Sphinx’ head, the pyramid looked almost seamless.  The eagle lifted off and flew straight toward the pyramid, circling high above it twice before flying off toward the two smaller structures.  The bird had been scouting the area for three days, taking refuge in the palms along the river against the heat, fishing in the river and hunting in the streets of the abandoned city. 

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

Jozsef was in no hurry.  In fact, he was jubilant as he rode along in front of the long column of armored vehicles winding across the desert at a snail’s pace behind him.  They were not following the highway, but winding back and forth between the craters left by Hubur’s little display.  This served two purposes:  it took up more time and it allowed the wind blowing up from the south to carry away the dust so that it did not blind and choke the soldiers.  Interspersed in the impressive army were bands of Bedouin warriors riding camels; tribal chieftains on their finest horses; lumbering metal monstrosities of war and fuel tankers to supply the vehicles with an instant source of power.  Supply trucks and water wagons rumbled along between the companies of foot soldiers and mounted cavalry.  Abaddon rode a great dark, camel-like beast in direct contrast to the shining white stallion that the ‘Prophet’ rode.  Jozsef was determined to take as much time as possible to retrieve the Emperor and his foolish conspirators.   The longer he could stay gone, the less time he would have to spend with the inestimable Hubur. 

Mark Ramsay was virtually no concern to him.  Abaddon had ruined him. Destroyed every vestige of Lord Adar with the noxious poison made of the leaves of the Tree of Life.  Jozsef thought it ironic that the very thing that Uriel had saved from the Garden of Eden in hopes of restoring mankind had led to his own demise.  In a sense, Uriel, the mighty hunter, Adar, had killed himself trying to save these puny creatures from themselves.  Bari was too young, too ignorant to be much of a threat… yet, and Nicole was too foolish to use her own powers.  The childish emperor was convinced that his great-grandfather could be salvaged.  Day after day, he visited the ruin that had once been one of Jozsef’s greatest worries, dragging Nicole along with him to engage in what he called ‘therapy’. 

The only worry he had about Bari was the possibility of his grandfather finding him and taking up his cause. He did not want to run into an ambush led by the Mighty Djinni.  If they stayed well in the open, they could see what was coming for miles.  There were no airforces left in the world.  What few aircraft remaining were closely held by the various powers clinging to control in diverse areas and Jozsef Daniel thought that he controlled most of them, himself.  They were too expensive to operate unless it was necessary in time of great urgency.  The fuel that they required was extremely hard to find and almost impossible to refine.  The only reason he had refrained from disposing of Mark Ramsay and the woman, Sophia, was the remote possibility that they might still be of some value when and if he could arrange a trade with the Templars.  He felt sure that Adar’s ‘Brothers’, including the latest relatives to show up, would not want to risk losing the great Uriel.