by Matt James
There, cut into stone facing, was a black void—a doorway.
He rushed forward, through the central aisle that separated six sets of stone benches. Even they were intricately cut, right out of the cave floor. Jack ascended three stairs, stepping up onto a raised platform. Moving to the back wall, he got on his tiptoes and reached as high as he could. Unfortunately, the podium still wasn’t quite tall enough to reach the ledge. With his flashlight back in his mouth, Jack tried, but couldn’t get a good enough of a grip on the second story walkway to hoist himself up. His hands were sore, wet, and cold as hell, and the wall was too smooth to gain any purchase with his drenched shoes.
On his final attempt, he fell off the podium, nearly rolling his ankle in the process. With that, he gave up and sat in the front row.
His free hand found its worn surface, and he turned his attention to it while he took a breather. It made him happy to think that his ass was the first to grace the seat in nearly eight hundred years. The supposed timeframe was an estimate based on when the Knights Templar order had been dissolved.
“Come on, Jack,” he said, looking around. “What are you missing?”
Unless the knights had brought a ladder with them to their meetings, there must’ve been a way up. The wall in front of him was just that—a wall. There was nothing else there besides the elevated podium. He pictured one of the group’s Grand Masters going over the latest and greatest in the world of “Templaring.”
The left and right walls contained the dead-ending corridors and prayer rooms, and some remarkable stone-cut artistry, but that was all. Defeated, he sighed and faced the entrance, feeling like a moron when he found what he was looking for. There, carved directly into the walls on either side of the archway, were grooves. To Jack, they kind of looked like hand and footholds.
The Templars never brought a ladder with them.
They had built one.
“Bloody brilliant,” he said, slipping into a horrible Cockney accent. “Yes, yes…bloody marvelous, if I do say so myself.”
Jack was exhausted, and his boyish goofiness was starting to show because of it. Few ever saw that side of him. The only one in the last half a decade that witnessed it was his partner, Bull. The guy rarely ever laughed. Jack felt so comfortable around him because of that. But it also presented him with a fun challenge.
Once, Jack even pulled out a Chris Farley impression—when Tommy Callahan butchered his father’s “bull’s ass” speech from Tommy Boy.
“No!” he muttered, flashlight in his teeth, “It’s gotta be your bull.”
Jack was sick of putting his Mini Maglite in his mouth. But he did it again, so he wasn’t entirely without light. Taking his time, he made it a priority and kept at least three points of contact with the wall. Jack was a skilled climber. This ascent, however, was an incredibly challenging one. The thick toes of his sneakers barely fit inside the cut footholds, and he’d only just now gotten the feeling back in his fingers. But in doing so, his grip instantly improved, but so did the discomfort. The edges weren’t as worn as he thought they’d be. The stone threatened to slice his skin deep as a result. He needed to take it easy and not rush.
But not too slow.
The room rumbled, and a large plume of dust kicked into the air. It only lasted a second or two, but it was enough to almost dislodge Jack from the wall. He dug his fingertips in harder as his feet came loose. Panicked, he hurriedly kicked for purchase. When he found it, he hugged the wall until the shockwave dissipated.
“What the hell was that?” he shouted, face smushed against the wall.
Jack knew of two distinct likelihoods that could’ve caused the temple to shake. An earthquake was a possible origin. He had odds on an explosion, though. The people he was dealing with made the likelihood far more probable.
Jack waited a moment longer. Then, he finished the climb up to the narrow ledge. Luckily for him, he saw that it wasn’t just the minute twelve inches wide he had initially estimated it to be. The shelf stuck out an additional six inches in most spots. It was still going to be a treacherous journey to the other end of the chamber.
“You made it this far, Jack.” He did a quick calculation in his head—distance and time. “Come on, man. You can do this.”
He put his back against the wall and leaned into it. He side-stepped to the right and inched his way around the rectangular space. It took him forever to get to the first corner, but once he did, he got into a solid rhythm and picked up his pace. Next was a long straight shot to the rear wall, and he happily traversed it without issue.
“There’s no way they did this every time,” he said, talking to himself. He glanced around the room. “Maybe they laid wooden beams across?” He imagined the temple looking like a high-ceilinged log cabin back in the day.
The last corner was a doozy, though. Part of the ledge was missing, and Jack was forced to hop sideways over a three-foot-wide gap. When he landed, more of the compromised stone came loose, and he nearly fell.
He picked up the pace and finished the nerve-racking trek before anything else bad could happen. Then, he blew out a long breath and examined the low-roofed, second story tunnel entrance. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but it wasn’t stairs leading deeper underground.
“Where are you guys taking me?” Jack asked, speaking to the long-deceased Templar architects.
One after the other, Jack’s footfalls echoed around him. He took the descent slow and steady. He’d taken a beating up until now. Falling down another set of stairs would surely do him in. Besides the blood that still ran down his right temple, Jack was lucky to avoid any serious injuries. If it were up to him, it’d stay that way too.
“Don’t get cocky, Jack.”
He subconsciously counted off the steps. The final on came five minutes later. He exited the cramped passageway and entered another large chamber. This one, however, wasn’t constructed for meetings and prayer. The large circular hollow was similar to the Nazi bunker in that it was most likely used as a shelter during times of war.
He guessed it was around five thousand square feet, and it contained a trio of stepped levels. Jack was currently on the lowest one. They all contained crudely built wooden tables and chairs, as well as stone-carved depressions the size of a grown man. Within each of the indentations were layers of a pale, grass-like substance.
“Hay?” Jack asked himself. He stepped into the center of the room, shining his light on every square inch of it. Then, it dawned on him. “They’re beds!”
Jack had just stumbled upon a secret Templar stronghold. He wasn’t a fountain of information when it came to the Knights Templar, but he knew that when Pope Clement had ordered the arrest of all Templars, including the freezing of their assets, a lot of them went underground due to fear of persecution. The papal directive led to dozens of them signing forced confessions. The papacy used those same confessions against them, and they were tortured and burned at the stake as a result. It was a dark time in history, for sure. Pope Clement even went as far as redistributing their property to those loyal to him.
“But not your treasure…” Jack mumbled, looking around. “Where did you put your big shiny booty?”
The Templars had been smart with their money, which also meant they’d been smart in the handling of it—more specifically—where they hid it. Today, a person’s capital was mostly digital, but not theirs. The Templars had physical wealth, and if it was as vast as the stories alleged, their storage facility—their vault—must’ve been enormous.
“Unless Hitler and his boys found it first.”
Was that the real reason you targeted Poland? His face fell. Did Hitler have an ulterior motive behind the invasion? No, Jack decided, it can’t be!
The thought made Jack ill. If it were true, then it meant that the Nazi party had been secretly funded by the world’s single largest collection of gold and antiquities. The “illness” moved into Jack’s heart. He was, quite literally, heartbroken to think that’s what the Tem
plar treasure had been spent on.
Financing evil.
“No,” he said, his dejection intensifying. He squeezed his fists tightly and shouted, “No!”
His voice echoed loudly in four directions. The emotional outburst helped him. It reset his mind to the situation he currently found himself in, and not the one the Templars had lived through. His biggest problem was that he was lost. There were three paths to choose from—doors number one, two, and three.
Before he decided to go anywhere, Jack needed to do something about his clothes. He was cold. It had sapped his strength and it was affecting his ability to focus. Jack was trained with how to survive in conditions such as this.
So, he gathered as much straw as possible. Touching it was surreal. A lot of it crumbled to dust—but not all of it! He hated the idea of destroying it, but the prospect of staying this cold, possibly even freezing to death, trumped any other concerns.
Next was a chair. The hay would get the fire going while the wood would keep it going.
He unsheathed his trench knife and found a loose stone on the floor across the circular chamber. Standing over the mound of hay and wood, he struck the flat stone several times with his blade until he got a spark to ignite. The ember landed in the dried-out kindling but didn’t immediately catch. Jack leaned in close and blew softly, stoking the undecided flame. Finally, it caught, and Jack tossed more and more of the hay atop it.
Satisfied that it would burn for quite some time, he stripped out of his winter jacket and thermal long-sleeve shirt. He laid them out on the bed next to the fire and turned them over as the minutes passed. With time to kill, he followed the smoke to the ceiling and watched as it disappeared into a vertically cut fissure. It acted as a rudimentary ventilation system.
Jack doubted this was the first time a fire had been lit here. The room was collecting the heat too. After only a couple of minutes, the temperature of the chamber had increased dramatically. Carefully, Jack dragged over a large table and leaned into it. It held without a creak. Slowly, he sat, relaxing when it successfully held his weight. Content, Jack slipped out of his shoes and socks too.
He closed his eyes and sat in silence, clearing his mind and concentrating only on what he was going to do next.
Find Emma. Find the train. Find an exit.
Grunting, he climbed down from the tabletop, wrung out the remaining water from his clothes, and begrudgingly got dressed. His outfit was still a tad moist, but at least he was warm. He’d be fine as long as he didn’t get wet again.
“And you’re coming with me,” he said, pocketing the palm-sized rock. Technically, he was stealing from a historical site. But even Jack would turn a blind eye if it meant he could start another fire, if needed.
One of the tunnels would surely take him north, but he had no idea which one. The Templars would’ve known these caves inside and out. The beds were evidence that they’d spent significant time beneath the surface, as were the worn stone benches of the temple.
Jack closed his eyes and took one deep inhalation. He blew it out slowly, emptying his lungs.
“Okay, let’s start with door number one.”
Determined to find the train before Emma and Gunter, Jack set off at a brisk pace, entering the tunnel on his left. The revelation that the Templar treasure may have been assimilated by the Nazis both enraged and fixated him. He wasn’t a treasure hunter, but he’d do whatever was necessary to preserve it and the historical value it held. Jack’s battles in the Middle East, and the adversaries he faced there, weren’t very different than the enemy he fought now.
His grandmother’s passion ran deep. Agatha would’ve gladly put her life on the line if their roles had been reversed. The same could be said about his grandfather. Like Jack, he would’ve wanted to do what was right. They didn’t like tyrants, and neither did Jack.
If his grandparents were combined into one being, they would’ve been the perfect person for the situation Jack found himself in now. The honorable soldier and the spirited historian.
Jack stopped and looked deep inside himself, realizing something. He was the spitting image of both Agatha and Philip. Jack always ran towards conflict, thirsting for the fight against evil. It was an irrational way to think, but it’s who Jack was. He also adored history more than he could explain. The revelation made him smile.
Jack’s grandparents weren’t the perfect people for the job.
He was.
His epiphany was met with a clunk of stone. Jack paused his march and looked down. Slowly, he dragged his foot back and noticed a circular depression in the floor. Within it was a likewise cylindrically cut piece of stone.
“Um.”
Jack dove forward, just as an immense slab of stone crashed to the floor where he had just been standing. He rolled onto his back. His eyes were as wide as saucers. An ancient Templar security measure had almost crushed him.
“Boobytraps, really?” Breathing hard, he climbed to his feet and faced the blockade. Knocking on it, he said, “Well, I guess I’m not going back that way.”
Jack inspected the enormous block. It was taller than the passage was, disappearing somewhere beyond the ceiling. There was no way through it except eroding the surface away with his fingernails for the next thousand years. So, he turned and continued onward. This time, Jack kept his light and his focus on the floor, not the past.
He heard the telltale sound of rushing water and cursed under his breath. He knew what it meant. It wasn’t any different than the last time—when he had been with Emma and the others.
Further ahead, the tunnel abruptly ended at another chasm. Like the one he fell from, this one was also roughly sixty feet high—and like the last one, it also continued into a torrent of pissed off water.
“You have got to be freaking kidding me!” he shouted, rubbing his forehead with both hands. “Argh!” No matter what he did, he couldn’t get the frustration, or his headache, to go away.
There was nowhere for him to go. Jack couldn’t go back, but nor could he proceed. There was a thirty-foot gap between him and the other side. He spotted evidence of a rope bridge, but it had rotted out long ago. Traces of it hung beneath the opening under the second half of the tunnel. With no other options, Jack knew what he needed to do. He stepped close to the edge and recalled the second and third rivers back at the junction beneath the railroad tracks.
He looked down at his semi-dry clothes and shrugged. Then, he jumped and re-entered the ice-cold, raging rapids. Jack cringed as he was tossed back and forth against the sides of the submerged channel over and over again. The waterfall came and went in a blur. Eventually, he found himself back in the cave with the serene pool and the Templar temple.
Jack climbed out of the water and flopped onto his back.
“Well,” he laughed, exhausted, “definitely not door number one.”
10
Jack struggled to do so, but he successfully climbed back up to the second floor of the prayer temple. Then, he ignited another fire to re-dry his clothes and himself. Once he was somewhat dry, again, he tried the next tunnel. He took extreme caution, contemplating every step as if it were his last.
Door number two, the one directly across from the entrance, led Jack deeper underground, if that was even possible. He had no idea how far down he was. From what he could tell, all the main paths ran straight and true, a testament to the builder’s abilities.
Ten minutes into the hike, the ground leveled-off some. When it did, Jack picked up on a soft, steady sound. As he neared, the white noise grew to a staticky crescendo. The upsurge in volume was incredible. Then, Jack stepped out into, yet another, immense hollow beneath the surface of the Earth.
It was a massive, vertically cut tube, not unlike an empty mission silo, and it disappeared into the darkness below. The floor and ceiling were entirely out of sight. Water flowed in from nearly every direction, pouring into the enormous conduit as if it were a natural storm drain. He inspected every surface of the tube and cou
nted at least six cascading outlets.
His shoulders slumped when he spotted a thin staircase following along the wall of the circular chamber. But it also gave him hope. The steps started at his level. He was at the bottom of a staircase, and if he was at the bottom, then it meant that there was an exit veiled somewhere above him.
By his calculation, he’d have to pass beneath all six waterfalls. For their part, the stone steps looked slick and incredibly unsafe.
“Well,” Jack said, feeling the spray smack his face, “so much for not getting wet again.”
Thankfully, the two-foot-wide stairs weren’t overly narrow. It made Jack’s ascent go by quicker. He still took his time, though. He doubted he’d survive the fall as he had before. This was it. There was no calm pool in which to surface. There was no smooth shoreline to collapse on top of, either. A beautiful Templar temple wouldn’t greet him. If Jack slipped and fell, he was dead.
The first waterfall he encountered exited the wall fifteen feet above his head. The main body of water avoided the steps entirely, but the spray didn’t. Jack pulled his jacket higher and allowed it to take the brunt of the cold mist instead of his flesh.
He dragged himself across the wall as he passed beneath the deluge. The amount of water pouring into the tube was absurd and impossible to calculate accurately. He circled the tubular chasm twice, traveling below five more waterfalls before the staircase leveled-off at another opening. He turned and pointed his flashlight back down to his original entry.
It lined up perfectly with the tunnel behind him.
The Templars’ direction was still sound. They cut the passages for a specific reason—to a particular location. It wasn’t sheer luck that they aligned with one another. There was purpose to the design.
