Brin did not like these reminders of mortality, of death. Much as Rachel had spoken to him of heaven, much as she had explained to him that Christ was the Son of God and had lived among men to give them a home in heaven, Brin was not inclined to share her faith and hope in life beyond death. Her witness of Christ, after all, had little significance when she used a pretense of devout goodness to hide the core of treachery.
No, Brin preferred gypsies to her hypocrisy. Theft was a way of life for them, one into which he’d been raised. At least with them there was consistency. If one of them had attempted to steal the ring from Brin, he would have had only himself to blame. After all, around wolves, a man took steps to protect his sheep. But when a man began to believe the wolf was instead a friendly dog, only hollow bitterness resulted when the sheep were attacked.
Brin remained deep within his brooding thoughts as the three walked in silence, only the scuffling of their footsteps echoing in the tunnels. It gave him a dark satisfaction to think that he might return to her the treachery she had given him.
They followed the white chalk marks, easily visible, through turn after turn after turn. Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at another wide opening.
It was no more than five steps wide and five steps deep. Two other tunnels led away from the opening, so it appearing to be hardly more than a junction. There was a flat wall, free of ledges, between those two tunnels, barely wider than a man’s shoulders.
This section was different from any other section of wall in the entire 20 miles of twisting, confusing maze. The sign of the cross had been scratched waist high into the soft lava rock. This cross was hardly bigger than the length of a thumb and impossible to see unless a person knew exactly where to look.
Directly above the cross, just below the roof of the tunnel, were two tiny slots. They were so close together that both could be touched with one hand of a person standing below and reaching upward. Again, unless a person knew exactly where to look, they were invisible. Indeed, the night before it had taken Julius ten minutes of searching to find them.
“I am almost afraid,” Julius said when they stopped. “For all my brave talk about needing to fulfill no ceremony, it seems that after all these centuries, perhaps something of importance should happen before we test the hidden lock.”
“Not a ceremony,” Rachel suggested quietly, “but prayer. I can think of no better place or time.”
Julius nodded.
Along with the other two, Brin bowed his head and joined hands.
As Rachel opened her heart in whispered words, Brin let his mind wander. He felt no guilt over this. The God she spoke to was not his God.
He thought of the afternoon she had wiped his face with a damp cloth, pretending concern that someone had used a potion to cause him to sleep beneath the tree. Had she expected her beauty to blind him? Did she think he would not realize she had directed him to the tree and that no other person would have known he would be there?
He thought of the morning after his head had been put into a sack and he had been searched for the ring. Across their breakfast, she had smiled innocently and asked him if he had slept well. As if he didn’t know she had sent the ruffians into his room.
He thought of all the times during their days of travel that she had spoken to him of tales of the man called Jesus, telling him of miracles and of love and compassion and of a man risen from the dead.
He thought of how he had smiled and nodded during those hours, enjoying the tales as entertainment but refusing for a moment to believe her further in anything she said.
All this ran through Brin’s mind as she prayed.
And one more thing. He had darts in his pocket, along with the tiny tube that gave him the power to propel those darts. Taken from her sack. The weapons of the Keepers were ready to be used against them.
Now if she tried to betray him once more by attempting to kill him here in the catacombs, he was prepared.
Rachel finished her prayer.
All three raised their heads.
And found themselves not alone.
“Edwin!” Rachel gasped.
Her brother stood nearby, watching them with a cruel smile beneath his red beard. He wore a cloak over fine clothes. In his right hand, he held a huge broadsword.
He bowed. “No less than I.”
“But you…the monastery…how…” She could not find words.
“My dear sister,” he said. “I was not hurt at all. It simply served me well for it to appear as such to the world.”
In a flash, Brin understood how stupid he had been. He began to withdraw his hand from his pocket. If somehow he could bring his hand to his mouth and fire one of the darts already in the tube…
“Tut, tut,“ Edwin said to him. Edwin raised the broadsword and pressed the point of it against Rachel’s neck. “I would prefer you all remained as motionless as stone.”
“But Edwin!” she said.
“Don’t prove to be tiresome,” he told her. “Haven’t you realized it by now? I am here to claim for me what St. Callixtus left behind centuries ago.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“You are the betrayer,” Rachel said eventually. “The one that Brin’s father described in his letter.”
“Edwin was here on the earlier journey,” Julius confirmed. “Years later, it is he who attempts it again.”
He snorted. “Why else did I arrange to have it appear that I had been attacked on the bridge when I first met with this gypsy? I could not merely rob him of the ring myself. No, I needed to cast suspicion elsewhere.”
Brin gritted his teeth. The tube and the dart with the sleeping potion was no more than a quick movement away from his mouth. Yet if Edwin’s sword pressed any harder against Rachel’s throat, it would draw blood.
“Just like years before when I sought the ring from Christopher,” Edwin said. “I hired strangers to be thieves. With no knowledge of why I wanted the ring or of its worth, a piece of gold was all it took. Only on this occasion, I hired them to rob me and the gypsy together.”
He spat. “The mongrel outwitted them. I needed to promise them more gold to help me further.”
“It was your idea that I go to Brin,” Rachel said, hardly above a whisper. “Your idea that Brin give them a similar ring to fool them. Yet all along you were their master?”
“Brilliant, was it not? It was one more way to ensure you did not suspect me. While the monks were in prayer that day, I stole away from the monastery and found the gypsy by the tree, according to the instructions I had given you to give him. There I first searched him while the sleeping potion kept him unaware. When I did not find the ring, I concluded he had hidden it nearby, which did not bother me. I needed only to continue to play the role of an injured man at the monastery. After you both departed from the monastery, I stayed but a half day. It allowed me to follow you, unsuspected.”
“It was you,” Brin said, “you who sent the men into my room the night in the inn.”
“No less.”
“The night in the inn?” Rachel asked Edwin.
“I was searched again,” Brin said to her. “I thought you were the betrayer. I thought you knew of the search and were hiding it from me. I am truly sorry I did not trust you.”
Edwin laughed. “What pathos. This amuses me.” He laughed again. “Yes, Rachel, my young and innocent sister. That night at the inn, the hired strangers helped me thoroughly search the gypsy and his possessions. It would have been much simpler to have the ring. I would have easily arrived in Rome long before you and found a way to take the other ring from Julius. When I knew the gypsy truly did not have the ring, I simply went ahead to Rome and waited for you. It had been my own suggestion, after all, that the gypsy sketch the ring’s symbols. I knew one way or the other that you would lead me to this crypt. After Julius departed the silversmith today, a small bribe gave me what I needed to know. A ring had been cast. All I had to do was follow.”
Julius had begun to edge away. Edw
in pressed the sword harder into Rachel’s throat, and she sucked in a breath of pain.
“Don’t move, old man,” Edwin said. “I’m rather enjoying all of this. You can all admire my clever deceptions.”
An alarming thought hit Brin. Edwin would not be in this mood to boast unless he had already decided none of the three of them would ever leave the catacombs.
“Someone among the gypsies betrayed me?” Brin asked. Any time he could steal was precious if Edwin meant to kill them.
“The one named Marcel. I believe he was jealous of you. He was strong, he said, but you were quicker and smarter, and he hoped you would die.”
It had never occurred to Brin that anyone would think that highly of him. In a strange way, it made him feel good that someone like Marcel had felt the need to throw harm his way.
“Evil has blinded you, Edwin,” Julius said. “But it is not too late to turn back. God forgave Moses, David, and Paul. The three greatest men of the Bible, all murderers who were taken back into the fold of believers. If God can forgive them…”
Edwin’s face twisted with hate. “Shut your mouth, old man.”
“I cannot. Surely your soul is worth more than any wealth.”
“Give me your ring, Julius, before I drain her life‘s blood.”
Slowly, with shaking hands, Julius reached over and placed the ring in Edwin’s free hand.
“You have my thanks,” Edwin said.
Without warning, Edwin stepped sideways. He flicked his wrist to turn the blade outward, and with the swiftness of lightning hit a hammer blow against Julius’s skull with the butt of the handle of his sword.
The thud of metal against bone sickened Brin.
Julius fell backward from the force of the blow. Brin’s hands shot out to catch Julius as he toppled. Brin staggered backward to hold the man’s weight.
“Drop him,” Edwin commanded Brin.
Brin eased the old man to the ground. He heard strained breathing from Julius. The blow had not killed him.
“Troublesome mongrel,” Edwin growled. “I told you to drop him. I expect you to obey me.”
Edwin brought his sword back.
Brin had nothing to help defend himself against the heavy steel edge. When he’d reached for Julius, the tube and dart had fallen from his hand to be lost in the darkness of the tunnels.
Edwin advanced. The sword swooped with a sideways slash.
Brin jumped back, sucking his stomach as deep as he could. The edge of the sword ripped his shirt. But Brin could move back no farther. The tunnel wall pressed on him.
Edwin brought the sword back again, ready to kill Brin.
Angel Blog
Was this my moment? The reason I’d been sent into Brin’s life since he was a baby?
I would not have been surprised if our Father sent me into their presence so all could see me. Sometimes that’s all it takes. The sight of an angel, the shimmering light, the sense of a powerful supernatural presence that, for a moment, takes them to the borderline between the physical and spiritual worlds. After it has happened, many deny our existence for the rest of their lives, choosing to believe that their minds tricked them. Others, however, who trust in our Father, marvel at the memory again and again, even to their deathbeds, and we rejoice to finally meet them on our side of the border.
Nor would I have been surprised if our Father had chosen to intervene with an earthly phenomenon, like an earthquake. Or, had we been outdoors, a strike of lightning and clash of thunder. Doubters would call it coincidence, and believers would hold to the knowledge it was divine intervention.
Would I be called to intervene?
Would our Father unleash His power in the form of an earthquake? And if he did, would it be my mission to protect Brin from the tons of rock that would crumble around him?
I waited. With our Father, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. Less than a heartbeat would have passed for Brin; to me, it was as if time stood still.
Then, in my trust of our Father’s plan for Brin, I understood.
Brin had not yet made his choice. The fate of his soul was far more important than anything else that moment in the catacombs. More important than any temporary triumph the evil one would secure if Edwin killed Brin and escaped with the jewels. More important than the lives of Rachel and Julius, who had long since chosen the destiny that would take them to our Father when they crossed to our side.
This then, was not my moment.
I simply watched.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“No,” Rachel told Edwin, her voice another weapon of steel.
Edwin glanced back at her.
She held the shiny ring between her thumb and forefinger. “This is what you want. Not his blood.”
“I shall take both,” he said. “His blood and the ring.”
She did not say a thing, but tipped her head back and placed the ring in her mouth. She smiled, grimaced, and swallowed.
“Now,” she said, stepping halfway into the closest tunnel. “It is mine to keep. And while you strike him, I shall flee. All I need is a three-step lead to lose you in this maze.”
Edwin dropped his arm in resignation. Brin relaxed. As did Rachel.
It was a mistake.
Edwin kicked Brin in the stomach and used that kick to push off toward Rachel. As Brin fell, clutching himself, Edwin dropped his sword, dove toward Rachel, and wrapped his arms around her waist.
Edwin threw her to down. Her head hit the ground first, stunning her.
Before Brin or Rachel could react, Edwin spun back and grabbed his sword again. With his foot, he rolled Rachel toward Brin. Julius was still motionless to the side of them.
Edwin stood above Rachel and Brin, pointing his sword in their faces.
“Permit me to gloat,” Edwin said. “I think such quickness is uncommon, is it not?”
Still on the ground, Brin put his arm around Rachel to protect her from Edwin.
Edwin laughed at his pitiful effort. “So your heart belongs to her, does it? What a shame I shall have to split her open to retrieve that ring.”
Rachel shrank back into Brin’s arms.
“Who wishes to die first?” Edwin asked. “Who wants to watch the other die?”
“You need not kill her to get what you need,” Brin said.
“Certainly. I have no patience. I want the second ring now.”
“I have what you need,” Brin said. “Take it from me.”
Surprise flickered across Edwin’s face. “You had it all along? But I searched you. Twice. I shook out your clothes. Your shoes. Everything.”
“I’m a gypsy,” Brin said. “Always suspicious. I hid it the same way she did. Until nature took its course.”
With slow, painful movements, Brin struggled to a sitting position. Because of the agony of his stomach, the effort nearly gagged him. Still on the ground, he leaned over, and removed his right shoe. He shook it, and a ring fell onto the floor. Brin tossed it up to Edwin.
“You have both rings,” Brin said. “Take the jewels. Not our lives.”
“I think not. It is much easier to slay you than go to the effort of tying you both will I search the crypt.”
Edwin brought his sword up again.
“What if the crypt is empty of jewels?” Brin asked.
The huge broadsword wavered. “Impossible.”
“Not if I entered here in the dead of last night and plundered it myself,” Brin said. “I had one ring. Don’t you think it would be child’s play for a gypsy to steal the other from Julius and later return it while he lay sleeping?”
Edwin’s eyes narrowed. “Then why come back today with these two?”
“Satisfaction,” Brin said. “I thought Rachel had betrayed me. I wanted to watch the pain in her face as she and Julius walked into an empty crypt. They would never suspect me of the theft. Later, I intended take the jewels at leisure from where I have them hidden.”
Edwin drew a deep breath. He
thought for several seconds. “No,” he said. “You are lying. I will kill you both.”
Brin smiled. “Then you shall never see those jewels. When I am dead, who will there be to tell you where they are hidden?”
Brin smiled again. “Forty large sacks of jewels, Edwin. Another 50 smaller sacks of silver and gold. It was no easy task to move them elsewhere in the catacombs. Out of the thousands and thousands of tombs, in the miles and miles of tunnel, where might they be?”
“You lie,” Edwin said. Yet there was uncertainty in his voice.
“Hold the sword to my throat while Rachel opens the crypt,” Brin said. “Then step inside and see for yourself. If I tell the truth, you give us our lives in exchange for the jewels. If I lie, then kill us both.”
Silence. Deathly quiet silence.
“Stand,” Edwin finally said. “Both of you.”
They did, slowly. Edwin handed both rings to Rachel. Then he spun Brin around, gripped his shoulders from behind with one arm, and placed the blade of his sword against Brin’s throat with the other.
“Open it,” Edwin commanded coldly to Rachel. “One false step and I spill his blood.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rachel stepped forward. She stood on her tiptoes to reach toward the slots high up on the wall. With a ring in each hand, she pressed them both into the slots at the same time.
There was the slightest of sounds, a light click that was heard only because the tunnel itself was so silent.
Then creaking.
It seemed the entire wall began to move. It slid inward, perfectly balanced on rolling balls. Had the situation not been so grave, it would have been a moment to marvel at the intricate and clever craftsmanship of the men who had labored on it centuries earlier.
The interior was dark.
“Stand where you are and hold the torch high,” Brin said. “Give your brother a clear view of the emptiness inside.”
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