By their first night on the Irish Sea, Ciarán was determined to learn some answers. He waited until Merchant mac Fadden and all but two of his oarsmen were asleep, leaving Ciarán alone in the stern with Dónall, who stared out at the sliver of moon in the night sky. His face bore the look of a tortured man.
“Why does the bishop want the book?” Ciarán asked in Latin, hoping the oarsmen did not speak the language.
Dónall sighed. After a moment, he turned his gaze away from the moon. “I presume he thinks it’s proof I’m a heretic.”
“I don’t believe that,” Ciarán said. “He came to Derry with all the evidence he needed. He said your brothers at Reims confessed to practicing sorcery, and that you and your friends murdered a priest to cover it up. What more proof did he need?”
“And you believe him?”
“I don’t know what to believe. I saw what you did to those Franks, with the fire and the wind.”
“That was the power of the Fae, not sorcery.”
Ciarán eyed his mentor skeptically. Outside the curach, the waves, with their longer fetch, rose higher, rhythmically lifting the vessel and then sliding it down the lee side.
“What if the bishop wants that power for himself?”
“Impossible,” Dónall said. “The Roman Church and its bishops are deathly afraid of anything remotely pagan. At best, they’d seek to destroy the book, like so many other things that threaten their joyless view of the world.”
“But isn’t it pagan?” Ciarán asked.
Dónall scoffed. “What does the word even mean? The Fae have existed in legend throughout history. The works of Homer and Virgil abound with tales of immortals, just as our own Celtic heritage does. To the ancient Greeks, the Fae were the nymphs and satyrs, while to us they are the Tuatha Dé Danann, the sidhe of Ireland. The real questions are, where do these myths come from and why are they so similar?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“That there’s a universal origin to these myths. My friend Thomas developed the theory while we were students at Reims. If the origin of these myths was in fact universal, he reasoned, where else would the proof be but in the Bible?”
Ciarán shook his head. “It’s not in Scripture.”
“Really? Do you remember that curious verse from Genesis?” Dónall’s brow rose as it often did when he posed an especially thorny challenge. “The one Maugis inscribed on the first page of his book: ‘When the sons of God went into the daughters of men, who bore them children, and these were the heroes of old, the warriors of renown.’”
Ciarán nodded, recalling the verse inscribed on the first page of Dónall’s tome.
“That’s what I mean. It’s a verse the Church deliberately ignores, yet it tells of a time when angels came to earth and mated with mortal women. And that’s not the only reference in scripture. The epistle of Jude tells of angels who had left their habitat in heaven for earth. This event brought about the war in heaven spoken of in the book of Revelation. Some of the angels who lost that war were imprisoned in the abyss—both Jude and Revelation make that clear—but what if some were not? What if some of the angels were granted clemency and allowed to stay on earth, yet banned forever from heaven? They could be the Fae, the immortals of legend.”
Ciarán listened intently, wondering if any of this could be true. “Do you think they really exist?”
“That’s what Thomas and I were determined to find out. Thomas discovered evidence in a diary that had been hidden in the library at Reims, stuck in the back of a shelf, covered up by other tomes. The diary’s author was none other than Archbishop Turpin of Reims, one of the paladins of Charlemagne, and his words offered proof that the mysteries of the Fae were real. He wrote of a time when the druids were in retreat, though something of the old magic still lingered in the world. Of the relics of Merlin of Britain, the tales of Oliver and Roland, and journeys to the Otherworld, the land of the Fae. According to the diary, one of the paladins, Maugis d’Aygremont, had been tutored by a Fae named Orionde, in a tower called Rosefleur, where he preserved all that he learned in a book that bore his name. All we had to do to have further proof of the Fae was find this Book of Maugis.”
Ciarán pointed with his chin at the satchel by Dónall’s side. “And you did.”
“It wasn’t easy,” Dónall admitted. “We thought, if any books existed bearing Maugis’ name, we might find reference to them in the royal library of Charlemagne at Aachen—in its day, it was the greatest archive in all Christendom. Unfortunately, after Charlemagne died and his grandsons proceeded to tear the empire to pieces, the library was scattered piecemeal among monasteries all over Europe. Soon, ten of our brothers at Reims had joined our quest, including Remi, who, after years of searching, found an index to Charlemagne’s collection in the Cathedral of Saint-Denis. Buried in that index was a reference to a Book of Maugis d’Aygremont, and the index even told where the book had been sent: to Reims, no less! It was right under our noses! We scoured the school’s library but found no sign of it. Then one night, Thomas discovered a hidden passage along a corridor connecting the school to the cathedral. It led to a room that proved to be a treasure trove, filled with tomes by Plotinus, Porphyry, Iambilchus, and others, all banned by the Church. We called it the ‘Secret Collection.’ And there, in a book shrine carved of oak, was the Book of Maugis. For the twelve of us, our lives changed forever. Over a year, we gathered at night in the Secret Collection and taught ourselves the book’s mysteries: the power of the Fae.”
“The bishop knows this,” Ciarán insisted. “He said you and your friends practiced sorcery in a chamber beneath the school. And he knew about Remi’s warnings, too. He spoke of a prophecy, just as Remi did!”
A look of alarm flashed across Dónall’s face. “Are you sure?”
“I heard it with my own ears.”
Dónall scratched his chin with his thumbnail, as he often did when working through a problem. “How could he know?”
“Did Maugis mention a prophecy? Maybe that’s why the bishop wants the book.”
Dónall shook his head in disbelief. “The book contains but a few cryptic references to prophecy—so obscure, no one really knows what they mean. Thomas thought he had figured it out, though I question that. The references may be nothing more than the delusions of a madman, once the power had ravaged Maugis’ mind. It’s dangerous to have faith in cryptic words. That’s how people get killed.”
“Did Thomas die for it?” Ciarán pressed.
“Without a doubt,” Dónall said solemnly.
“Did my mother?”
“Her faith in Thomas and what he believed put her life in danger, even if it was Adalbero’s inquisition that finally took it.”
Dónall’s words stung like a blow to Ciarán’s gut. His anger, which had faded in the passing days, flared anew. “Then I damned well deserve to know about it! Show me what Maugis said.”
One of the oarsmen glanced back at them, and Ciarán looked away.
After the oarsman resumed his dour humming, Dónall shifted on the bench until his back was to the oarsmen. “Turn around,” he said, and Ciarán shifted, too, until he faced astern and looked out at the faint wake glistening on the sea. Dónall removed the leather-bound tome from the book satchel. “Maugis hid the reference to it on one of the blank pages.”
“A blank page?” Ciarán asked, wiping the brine from his face. “How?”
“See for yourself,” his mentor replied, leafing through the pages until he found a stained old vellum with no writing.
“I don’t see anything,” Ciarán said.
“That’s because you’re not reading it in the proper light . . .” Dónall drew a small crystal from his robe. “Watch.” Closing his eyes, he sat still for a moment, then put the crystal to his lips and blew on it. “Eoh,” he said softly, continuing to blow until the crystal glowed with a soft, pearlescent light. Ciarán’s eyes opened wide. His hands clenched the side of the boat as the light dimmed to a
faint glow. There was something about the light that seemed to calm his startled nerves—something in its color, pure and white like newly fallen snow. The light illuminated Dónall’s face, which, for once, appeared not angry or threatening but serene. “This light is inside us all,” Dónall said. “It is the spirit element that abides within our mortal shells.”
Ciarán sat speechless.
“Are you surprised that my soul’s not black as coal?”
“No, I . . . How?”
“Through a Fae word born of the tongue of angels, which allowed me to reveal an energy that lives within us at all times and produces an effect that one could call magic—that’s how. Through the light in this crystal, I can see things hidden from our mortal eyes—the truth of our surroundings. You’ll be happy to know that here on this boat, everything is as it seems. But that’s not always the case.” Dónall lowered the crystal until it illuminated the blank page. As the light hit the vellum, words began to appear as if being written by the pen of some ghostly scribe.
Ciarán stared slack-jawed at the page. The words formed a heading that read, “The Prophecy of Arcanus.” Beneath it flowed a verse:
Dark cycle of a thousand years, when the dragon is freed. The prophecy is etched in the heavens. The sphinx is the key.
Then came the word “Salvation,” followed by a second verse:
In Virgo’s seed of Charlemagne’s line, and Enoch’s device, where the answer lies, in the whisper of breath, or all hope dies.
“Not exactly clear, don’t you agree?” Dónall said. “Thomas had his theories—Remi, too. But unlike our work on the Fae, I’ve never seen proof that any of their theories are true.”
“The prophecy of Arcanus,” Ciarán said, still gazing in awe at the cryptic words that appeared as if by magic on the page. “Who is Arcanus?”
“Homer referred to him as Alkynous, king of an island called Phaeacia, which many believe was the lost isle of Atlantis. Plato wrote of it in Kritias. Arcanus was a prophet, yet all that Maugis chose to tell us of his prophecy is that it is etched in the heavens and that the sphinx is the key.”
“The riddle of the sphinx, the creature in the story of Oedipus?”
“A beast with the head of a woman and the body of a lion,” Dónall said. “That’s all, until one gets to the theories those few words have spawned.”
“My mother believed those theories, didn’t she?”
“Sadly, yes.”
“Then I want to know what they are.”
Dónall let the crystal’s light fade until it was gone. The words disappeared, leaving only the stained blank page in the dim moonlight. “Knowledge of any value has to be earned, lad. So if there’s any value to those theories, you’re going to have to sort it out yourself. I’ve already given you the same clues we started with.”
Ciarán shook his head. “What am I supposed to do with them?”
Dónall looked at him sternly. “Solve the damned riddle.”
CHAPTER TEN
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
That night, Dónall slept fitfully. During the long hours he lay awake, he prayed the rhythm of the sea would quiet his thoughts, but nothing could overcome the haunting memories of that terrible night in Reims. So many years had passed since then, yet in his mind’s eye the images remained as vivid as yesterday.
He stood outside the city on one of the surrounding tree-crowned hills thick with autumn leaves, as the sun began to set. He was young then, a man of just twenty-five. Thomas was with him, dressed in his Benedictine habit, his angelic face clean-shaven and his dark hair rustling in the breeze. The treetops shimmered with a faint flicker of blue light as Dónall and Thomas swung their leaf-shaped swords, playing with the wind.
The blustering breeze whirled a pile of yellow and orange leaves high into the air. Thomas had arranged the leaves into a birdlike shape, which he directed with his sword, causing it to soar and dive and then rise back up, borne aloft by the complicit wind. His creation moved with grace and beauty, for Thomas was an artist, and he smiled and laughed as it flew. “What should I name him?” Thomas asked.
Dónall glanced at the swan-shaped creation gliding in circles above the trees. He had summoned his own wind, swirling leaves into a serpentine ribbon. Following the flicks of his sword, the ribbon coiled and looped above the ground. “Call him Icarus,” Dónall said.
“Icarus?”
“Yes, because as soon as another thought invades that brain of yours, he’s going to plummet from the sky.”
Thomas laughed. He banked his creation and pitched it into a dive. The leafy bird pulled back its wings, like a hawk stooping on a hare. It plunged through Dónall’s swirling ribbon, scattering its leaves in every direction. Then Thomas’s bird beat its wings, climbing skyward.
“Icarus got hungry,” Thomas quipped.
Dónall smiled and shook his head. Concentrating on his sword, he whispered a Fae word and waited. Around him, the wind whistled. Icarus soared above the trees before Thomas pitched it into another graceful dive, but halfway through the dive, the avian shape collapsed. Its wings crumpled into its body, which spun wildly amid a swirling funnel that churned leaves and dust, blasting them across an acre of wooded hilltop.
Thomas looked dumbfounded.
“Icarus shouldn’t have flown into my cyclone,” Dónall said with a grin.
Thomas shrugged. “We’re getting better at this, you know.”
“That we are.”
“Do you think we could ever harness the wind to make a man fly?”
“Like a bird?”
“Not exactly, but I think it could be possible.”
“There you go again with that unfettered imagination.”
“Do you want to try?” Thomas asked with a mischievous grin.
“It’s past dusk,” Dónall said. “We need to get back before they close the gates. Besides, I’m worn out.”
“So far, fatigue is the only untoward effect. Maybe tomorrow we’ll try to fly.”
“You really do want to be like Icarus, don’t you?”
Thomas just shrugged. They stowed their swords in the sheaths hidden beneath their habits. They had had the blades forged secretly, based on a diagram in Maugis’ book. As far as they knew, these twelve blades were the only ones like them in all the world—one for each of their brethren, the keepers of the mysteries of Maugis d’Aygremont.
Dusk faded to night by the time they reached the Porte de Mars, the three-arched gateway flanked by the towering Roman walls that surrounded the city. The two monks entered as the guardsmen were closing the gates, and made their way toward the cathedral, passing through cramped neighborhoods of thatch-roofed hovels. Beneath the eaves of several houses, oil lanterns dimly lit the narrow streets littered with offal and waste. Dónall ignored the stench, but he and Thomas could not help noticing the prostitutes who called out to them. The women wore scant clothing and were quick to bare their breasts—some plump like golden melons, others slight with dark nipples. Dónall and Thomas passed them by, though Dónall felt certain that these women had serviced their fair share of priests.
The school was part of a cluster of buildings that surrounded the cathedral. Many of its ivy-covered walls had fallen into disrepair, which had been a constant gripe of Archbishop Adalbero, especially when the winter wind whipped through the chinks, sweeping parchments from desks and chilling fingers till they could no longer hold a quill.
When the two monks arrived, they found the gatehouse empty, so they entered the school through the unlocked gate.
The foyer was quiet. In sconces on the walls, rushlights flickered with the breeze that hissed through a crack in the old slate roof. A wiry monk ducked through an archway from the common room. It was Nicholas, and his eyes were as wide as if he had seen a ghost.
“Something horrible has happened!” he exclaimed.
“What is it?” Thomas asked.
“Canon Martinus,” Nicolas said, his jaw quivering. “He’s . . . dead.”
Dónall looked at him, stunned. “How?”
“He’s there, just past the common room, in the hall.”
Thomas bounded through the archway, with Dónall on his heels. In the common room, some thirty black-robed monks and priests had gathered at the entranceway of the corridor leading to the cathedral. Many bore looks of shock; others wept outright. Some clustered in small groups, whispering or praying.
Another of their brethren, Lucien, slumped against the archway from the foyer. His normally cherubic face was ashen, and tears welled in his eyes. “You didn’t tell us it would come to this,” he moaned.
Thomas looked at Lucien, puzzled, but Lucien stared through him as if he were an apparition.
Dónall touched Lucien’s shoulder. He didn’t flinch.
Thomas backed away and then started working his way through the crowd.
“He didn’t tell us it would come to this,” Lucien sobbed again under his breath.
Dónall shook his head and left Lucien there. And at the entrance to the wood-paneled corridor, he saw the body.
Canon Martinus lay sprawled on his back. A long red gash ran from one side of his throat to the other, and the crucifix around his neck lay submerged in a pool of blood that filled the hollow of his throat.
Brother Omer stood beside the dead priest. Dónall gripped Thomas’s shoulder. For the heavyset monk was pleading with upturned, bloody palms before a forbidding man in crimson robes—Archbishop Adalbero of Reims.
“I found him like this, I swear,” Omer stammered. “As God is my witness . . . !”
Adalbero glared accusingly at Omer, while another of their brothers, Gerbert of Aurillac, whispered in the archbishop’s ear. Gerbert’s thin face was fixed with a grim expression. He glanced briefly at Dónall and, for an instant, caught his eye. But the glance betrayed no thought or feeling, and his attention quickly returned to the archbishop.
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