»Perhaps it is much easier than we think,« Maria said. »The small temple was already so obvious. And the best hiding place is in the open.«
»Meaning what?«
»The temple itself and the Baphomet head, for instance. These are distinct clues that point to the Templars. So perhaps they are nothing else but an invitation: hey, look here, here is the code.«
»Okay. Let’s assume that you are right. What role would the Sator Square play in this? And the copper symbol?«
»Well, two different keys are needed to open the lock.«
Peter continued to stare at the Sator Square and the amulet.
Two keys.
For a brief moment, he was struck by another déjà-vu experience. Suddenly, the whole situation – being at a complete loss and sitting on a bed in a small hotel room – felt as familiar as an old and unpleasant memory mingled with the shreds of his nightmares. Dark images of a ruined city in the desert. Edward Kelly. Ellen’s face, close, so close to his during their last night together. Alessia Bertoni, who looked so much like her. The feeling of drowning. The panic of losing something beloved, forever.
Edward Kelly. Two keys. … Two keys.
»Peter? Are you okay?«
Angrily he held up his hand to shut her up.
Two keys, one lock. Edward Kelly.
Peter stared at the Sator Square and the amulet without blinking.
Two keys, one lock.
As he was staring without blinking, his visual axis shifted and the images of the Sator Square and the amulet began to overlay.
Edward Kelly, you fucking crook and murderer!
»Holy shit, I think I found it!«
Peter grabbed the paper with the Sator Square and drew something on it. When he handed Maria the paper she saw that he had drawn the copper symbol over the square, fitting it in true to scale.
»In most cases, medieval encryption techniques were quite simple. What if each end of the copper symbol corresponds to one letter of the Sator Square?«
He wrote the resulting letters down, one after the other.
SRAOEEOARS
Maria seemed little convinced. »And?« she said.
»This might actually be the code. Perhaps it’s an anagram!«
Electrified, he took the paper and bolted out of the room. When he returned fifteen minutes later, he was very excited.
»Where have you been?« Maria asked.
»The lady downstairs kindly allowed me to use her computer. You can find a whole bunch of anagram generators on the internet. I found one for Latin, if we assume that the code was written in Latin. The letter sequence SRAOEEOARS results in the following, more or less reasonable sentences:
Area Eo Sors
Area Sero Os
Ara Esse Oro
Ara Sese Oro
Ea Aes Soror
Ea Rosa Sero
Ae Aes Soror
Ae Rosa Sero
Orare Aes Os
Aes Ora Sero
Aes Aro Sero
Ora Aro Esse
Ora Aro Sese
Ora Rosa See
Maria skimmed through the list and shook her head.
»None of this makes any sense whatsoever. It’s crude gibberish!«
»Don’t you notice anything?« Peter asked.
»What should I notice? It all looks completely random to me.«
Peter circled one of the sentences.
ORARE AES OS
»Pray, bronze, bone,« Maria translated. »So what?«
»That’s the clue!« Peter said triumphantly. »Whatever the Templars might have hidden, it is in the Palace of the Popes.«
Without paying any mind to Maria’s questions, he grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room.
The woman at the ticket counter of the Palace of the Popes remembered Maria and Peter. She found it quite surprising that they were in such a rush and explained to them that the Palace would be closing in half an hour but Peter assured her that this would be enough time. They just wanted to take another look at a detail in the Saint-Jean Chapel.
By now, Peter was running, pulling Maria along behind him and ignoring her protests. When they reached the splendidly decorated chapel, he stopped for a moment to get his bearings and then he headed towards one of the side altars and pointed at a huge sculpture behind the communion table.
»There she is!« he proclaimed. »I noticed her this morning because I have never seen an image like it. Do you get it now?«
Maria stared at the sculpture. »Good gracious, you are right,« she whispered. »Pray, bronze, bone.«
According to the little plaque at the side, the unusual bronze sculpture dated from the 14th century. A bronze statue showed the Virgin Mary kneeling in prayer over the mortal remains of the martyrs Stephen and Sebastian.
»What do we do now?« Maria whispered.
Peter looked over his shoulder. Due to the late hour, they were alone in the chapel. Peter expected that any minute the woman from the ticket counter would send one of the janitors to the chapel to ask them to leave. So they didn’t have much time.
He stepped in front of the sculpture and began to examine the statue. It didn’t take long until he let out a soft gasp of triumph.
»Look at this!«
He pointed at one of the bronze bones between Maria’s knees. This one was distinctly larger than the others and it also protruded.
»There is a gap, do you see it?«
»Peter! What are you doing, for heaven’s sake?«
Ignoring Maria’s horrified objection, Peter grabbed the protruding end of the bone and jerked at it.
Nothing happened. So Peter looked over his shoulder again and then he jerked at it one more time, now with more force. With an ear-piercing sound, but unexpectedly smoothly after the first resistance, the thread underneath the bone, which had not been moved in centuries, awoke to new life. After a few rotations, Peter had screwed off the upper half of the bone and held it in his hand. Frozen in horror at Peter’s cold-bloodedness, Maria stared at a bronze tube in the statue of the Virgin Mary. And inside the tube was a rolled up parchment.
EPISODE 5
ISLAND OF LIGHT
Lübbe Webnovel is an imprint of Bastei Lübbe GmbH & Co. KG
Copyright © 2011 by Bastei Lübbe GmbH & Co. KG, Cologne, Germany
Written by Mario Giordano, Cologne
Translated by Diana Beate Hellmann, Los Angeles
English version edited by Charlotte Ryland, London
Editors: Friederike Achilles/Jan F. Wielpütz
Artwork: © Dino Franke, Hajo Müller
E-Book-Production: Dörlemann Satz, Lemförde
ISBN 978-3-8387-1451-6
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole, or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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XL
May 13, 2011, Avignon
Venerable brother in faith, ally in the holy cause of Christ, liberator of the sacred sites, God is light, a source of overflowing abundance and eternity. Cleanse your eye so that you can see the purest light. Become not a channel that both gives and receives at the same time but a vessel that waits until it is filled. Today we have many channels in the church but only very few vessels. Learn to pour out only when your vessel is full and do not succumb to the desire to be more generous than God.
To our greatest regret and pain, our good brother Malachy, the Irishman, has proven to be a channel. Blessed with the greatest gift that the gracious God can bestow upon us, his eyes saw things that frightened him terribly. But instead of collecting them in humble devotion and for the glory of God like the vessel, he wrote them down so that he could bring them immediately to the knowledge of our dear pupil, Eugene III, who is now our most holy and beloved Pope.
You know, my brother, how deep the love is that we carry in our hearts for the Irishman. And so we are pained yet more by what we had to do for the sake of the Church and for the benefit of our holy cause. Two weeks ago, the Irishman was a guest in our abbey. He was on his way to Rome, where he wanted to apprise the Pope in full of his visions and prophecies. Without any coercion on our part, Brother Malachy told us about the things that the Lord showed him in his dreams, things that he had described in detail on a parchment so that the world would learn about them.
We all know what a blessing it is to sense a worm when there is still a chance of destroying it. Those were, at least, our terrified thoughts, as we heard in the words of the Irishman all the things that you, dear brother, told us about the secret. The secret which you discovered by the Sacred Sites, and which we must with all our might and through God’s help return to the hands of our Holy Mother Church. Among other things, Brother Malachy talked about an island of the light. He described it precisely and we recognized it as the island on which we wished to hide the secret for all eternity, once it had come into our possession through pure bravery and divine providence. Brother Malachy described the holy secret in all detail and expressed his justified fear that it might represent a tremendous danger to the Church and the entire world. He talked about the fact that one day, 700 years from now, a Pope would be elevated to the See of St. Peter who would call himself Peter. And that he would be the last Pope, who would reveal the secret and hence bring the apocalypse to the world, and that his number would be 306.
Beloved brother, you will discern from these few words how close Malachy had come to the holiest of all holy secrets, which we deem so precious that we are willing to convince the King of France, the Rulers of Eastern Franconia and Bavaria, and the Holy Father of the necessity of a further crusade. And you will see, too, how determined Malachy was to disclose the secret to the world.
But what a tremendous danger it would be, to the Church and to the faith, if this secret became known to the world! Our dear pupil and Pope, Eugene III, is a weak human being. He will turn to Louis with a request for assistance. Which would mean the end of everything we are fighting for. Louis the Younger is a snake, a devious and deceitful man without any sense of justice, an enemy of his own conscience. This greediest of all greedy collectors will not leave one stone unturned in bringing the secret into his personal possession. This will be the downfall of the Church.
So we spoke to our brother Malachy: Look where the accursed things you do can get you! You are wasting your time and your strengths, ruining yourself with these things that only depress your spirit, drain your heart and weaken the power of your gift.
But you know the Irish; they are stubborn and unteachable. Malachy could not be dissuaded from his plan, neither by our brotherly love, nor by rational discussion. On the following day, our brother Malachy suffered a regrettable bout of the worst imaginable convulsions, which took his life from him during the following night. In that very same hour, we took possession of his parchments and destroyed them for the benefit of the Church.
Our brother Malachy was a devout Christian and a true saint. We will do everything in our power to make sure that he is canonized as soon as possible. We will soon leave to join up with Louis and preach for a second crusade into the Holy Land so that you, dear brother, and your order are provided with all imaginable powers and financial means to bring the holiest of all holy secrets into your possession and take it to the island of the light, where it can be kept safe for all eternity. Amen.
Clairvaux Abbey
the fifteenth of November in the year of our Lord 1148
»What do you think?« Maria asked after delivering a loose translation of the Latin text. She put the parchment back on the bed and looked at Peter.
»That your Latin is terrific.«
»Anything else?«
That you are gorgeous, Maria, the way you are sitting here, on this bed in a guesthouse in Avignon, reading to me from a 700 year old parchment.
»That Bernard of Clairvaux poisoned one of his closest friends because his clairvoyant abilities got in his way. And to atone for it he pushed for his canonization. That’s what I call true friendship!«
»What do you think this ›holiest of all holy secrets‹ is?«
Again, Peter picked up the parchment they had found inside the bronze bone and held it in his hands, gazing absentmindedly out of the window. The sounds of footsteps and the voices of nighttime revelers and tourists drifted up from the alley under their window. The rain had stopped and the light of the streetlamps mingled with the cozy light of the little desk lamp in their small room. For a brief moment, Peter wished nothing more than to sit on this bed with Maria, without this parchment and without having to jump at every little sound from the hallway.
»Peter? Is something wrong?«
Peter turned back to her. »In any case, it looks as if Hugues de Payens discovered something in the Holy Land which Bernard regarded as tremendously powerful but also as a terrible curse. Bernard wanted to get his hands on it at any cost and remove it to a safe place, but without the knowledge of his pupil or Pope Eugene III. And so he took the Templars, who were at that point just a badly organized group of private security guards, transformed them into an elite unit, and preached the Second Crusade. And, as we know, he was successful.«
»Except that the Second Crusade was a fiasco. The Templars suffered a devastating defeat during the Siege of Damascus.«
»Right, they screwed that up. It could be that Bernard and the Templars never managed to bring this ›secret‹ into their possession. But to know that the secret existed was already dangerous enough. So dangerous that it was worth committing a murder to prevent Malachy betraying it through his prophecies. Perhaps this knowledge is the true treasure of the Templars that was hidden for centuries.«
Maria gave Peter an incredulous look. »Quite a daring hypothesis.«
Peter shrugged his shoulders. »Have you ever heard about an island of the light?«
Maria shook her head. »It may be just a paraphrase. Perhaps it’s not even an island. The entire letter is riddled with vague statements. It could be that there is no connection whatsoever between your visions, the Pope’s resignation, and all the murder cases!«
»There is,« Peter said mulishly, »we have to find this Island of the Light.«
Maria sat up, regaining her determination and her thirst for adventure. »Good. So where do we start?«
Peter stood up from the bed. »Tomorrow. You need to get some sleep and so do I.«
»But tomorrow the Saudi Ambassador expects us back at the airport,« she protested.
»I thought you didn’t want to return to Rome right now.«
She gave him a grin. »But you will fly back to Rome tomorrow.«
»I thought we were clear about this. This whole thing here is my problem, not yours.«
She ignored his objection and stood up, too. All of a sudden, she was standing close in front of him. Very close.
You could bend forward now and kiss her, just like that.
But Peter did not move. He only looked at her and she returned his gaze, just like that. They were standing there so long, it felt like an eternity, until Peter took her hand. Just like that.
»I…«
»I am starving!« she said briskly, pulled her hand out of his grasp and began to roll up the parchment carefully. »I am terribly hungry. And after all, we are in France. Let’s go out.«
Suddenly she seemed thoroughly cheerful and made a little too much fuss of laying the parchment and the amulet into the small desk drawer, locking it and putting the key into the pocket of her habit.
»Madame downstairs watches the place like a hawk. So it won’t be easy for anyone to get up here. … Come on, Peter! Just for an hour.«
Peter woke from his trance. »Okay. Fish or meat?«
»Fish,« she said, beaming. »Fish, fish, fish!«
XLI
May 13, 2011, Kuch
inoerabu Island, East China Sea
And what are we now? Guests or prisoners?«
»I don’t know. What matters is that we are alive and together.«
She gave a sigh. She hadn’t really expected any other answer. A strong wind was rising from the ocean and rolling up the pale cliffs, bringing with it scattered white cumulus clouds and the scent of salt and seaweed. Everything about this island was radiant: the green of the Japanese cedar trees, the purple of the Rhododendron blooms, the white of the cliffs, the cobalt blue of the ocean and the azure blue of the sky. It always seemed that there was a little bit too much of everything on this barely 8-square-mile island off the southern tip of Japan. In particular, too much ocean. Apart from the coastline of Yakushima Island, which was 10 miles away, there was nothing to see on Kuchinoerabu, just the ocean and the squat crater of Mount Furudake.
»See it as our first vacation together.«
She turned her head towards the man sitting next to her in a wicker chair, enjoying the salty breeze.
»Our first vacation. Yes. But I know that you don’t see it like that. I am afraid, Franz. Very afraid. Not for myself. You know why.«
Yes, he knew. He knew exactly why the woman in the wicker chair next to him was afraid and he shared her fear.
»What do you want me to say, Sophia? You know how I feel deep inside.«
»I don’t want apologies, Franz. To be honest with you, I am even happy that we are here now. It has been a long time since I was this happy. I’m just afraid that all this is just a temporary illusion and that we will soon be landing back in reality, with a thump. And I’m wondering whether we are ready for that.«
A servant in traditional clothing brought them green tea. Sophia Eichner drank little sips from the small wafer-thin porcelain bowl and observed with fascination the way the large, rough hands of the man beside her gently cradled the delicate cup. Franz Laurenz had swapped his black priest’s garments for a pair of dark blue cotton pants, a white shirt, a navy blue sweater, dark brown yachting shoes and a plain blue jacket. He was wearing a pair of old American sunglasses and only his pallor gave away that he was not some wealthy elderly gentleman with a penchant for sailing.
Apocalypsis I Page 20
