The Stone of Destiny

by Jim Ware

  “Sure. King Arthur is one of my all-time favorite stories.”

  “Then you know about the quest for the Holy Grail?”

  “Of course. The cup of Christ. What’s that got to do with it?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  Peter pulled another book off the shelf. “This,” he said, “is Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival. It’s one of the earliest of all Grail-quest narratives. German, thirteenth century. Here’s what Wolfram says about the knights who kept the legendary Grail castle.”

  He opened the book and began to read:

  I will tell you how they are nourished. They live from a Stone whose essence is most pure. It is called Lapis Exilis. However ill a mortal may be, from the day on which he sees the Stone he cannot die for that week, nor does he lose his color. Such powers does the Stone confer on mortal men that their flesh and bones are soon made young again. This Stone is also called “The Gral.”

  “Wow!” said Morgan through a mouthful of bologna and cheese.

  “That’s not all. This Gral was also supposed to have the power to provide food for the hungry—any kind of food they wanted: ‘whatever one stretched out one’s hand for in the presence of the Gral,’ says Wolfram, ‘it was waiting.’ That’s strongly reminiscent of the idea of Lia Fail as ‘The Satisfaction of All Desire.’ What’s more, it could only be handled by a maiden of perfect purity.” Rev. Alcuin flipped to another passage in the book. “Here. This is from a description of a great banquet at the Grail castle:

  A remarkable procession then entered: young girls, marching in pairs with candles, ivory stools, a platter made of precious stones, and silver knives. After these came the Princess. Her face shed such refulgence that all imagined it was sunrise. Upon a cloth of green silk she bore the Consummation of the Heart’s Desire, its root and its blossoming—a thing called ‘The Gral.’ Such was the nature of the Gral that she who had the care of it was required to be of perfect chastity and to have renounced all things false.”

  Morgan looked up into the Reverend’s face. “So what does it all mean?”

  Peter shut the book. “Don’t you see? The point is that, in this version of the story, the Grail isn’t the cup of Christ at all. It’s a miraculous Stone! That’s the thing that captured your dad’s imagination! He came up with the idea that there might be a link of some kind between the powers attributed to the Gral and the powers of the alchemical Philosophers’ Stone. He further theorized that this Gral might actually be the real Lia Fail, the legendary Stone of Destiny, secretly sent out of Ireland by the Tuatha De Danann. That’s how he interpreted the name Wolfram gives it—Lapis Exilis. Some scholars explain it as a derivation of the Latin lapsit exillis, ‘it came down from above,’ or lapis ex coelis, ‘the Stone from Heaven.’ But your dad chose to understand it as lapis exsilis: the exiled Stone.”

  “Do you think he was right?”

  Peter replaced the book on the shelf and sat down. “I don’t know. I’d say it’s entirely possible that these fables are all just different versions or mutations of a single myth. But your dad wasn’t thinking primarily in terms of fable and myth. He took all of this quite seriously. That was the problem.”

  “What do you mean—‘problem’?”

  Rev. Alcuin raised one eyebrow and leaned back in his chair. “Well,” he said, “that’s where we began this conversation, isn’t it? With your mom and her concerns about you following in your father’s footsteps. I think you already know why she regards all of this as a ‘problem.’”

  Morgan felt his cheeks flush—whether with embarrassment or guilt or anger or a combination of all three he didn’t know. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I’m not sure I do. I’m not so sure my mom understands. I don’t think she gets it. Dad was a brilliant man!”

  “Oh, I agree one hundred percent,” said Peter. “But brilliance isn’t everything. In the end, your money is worth no more to you than the things you choose to spend it on. It’s the same with intelligence and knowledge. But I’ll grant your dad this much: In some ways, his theory makes a lot of sense. Whether you view it as a simple question of folklore or as quest for an actual artifact, his ideas really do fit the evidence. We can trace the progress of the various ‘stone’ stories across the face of Europe. They start in Ireland and stretch in a wide arc through Britain, over into France, from France to Germany, from Germany to Switzerland and Italy, and finally down into Brigantium and Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The popular impressions they’ve left behind, and the apparent correlation between some of their most striking features and the parallel legends of the Philosophers’ Stone, are altogether—”

  Morgan felt as if someone had just slapped him on the side of the head. His ears were ringing, his heart pounding. The wheels of his mind began to spin like a yo-yo on the end of a string. His thoughts raced back to that morning. The last known resting place of the Stone, he heard George say, was in the mission church of Santa Compostela … here in Santa Piedra. Then came the voice of Madame Medea: It is nearby. Very close to you, I think.

  “… but as far as I’m concerned,” Rev. Alcuin was saying, “these stories are intended to point to something beyond themselves. They’re images of a greater reality. We all know that the Philosophers’ Stone can’t give anyone eternal life. And it’s obvious that Lia Fail has never satisfied anybody’s deepest longings and desires. That distinction belongs to Someone else. Your father was beginning to see that. Your mother wants you to see it too. I hope you’ll give some serious thought to …”

  But Morgan wasn’t listening. It was as if Peter Alcuin and his office and his books and his teapot and the tower of St. Halistan’s and the rest of the entire world had all faded away into an engulfing gray mist. He could see nothing, nothing at all but the flowering courtyard and tall Romanesque facade of the Mission Santiago de Compostela.

  “I’m sorry, Rev. Alcuin,” he blurted abruptly, “but I’ve got to go. Thanks very much for the tea and sandwiches.”

  And with that he was out the door.

  Part 3

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Mission

  On Monday afternoon, while Eny was sitting above Laguna Verde and gazing out into the mist, Morgan was on his knees in the school bike racks fumbling with his combination lock. It was late. He’d had to stay after class to make up a bungled math test, and now he had less than an hour before the Mission was scheduled to close. Haste, anxiety, and the damp cold combined to make his fingers stiff and clumsy. Twice he tried and failed to open the lock. A third time he spun the dial and struggled with the shackle. Come on, you stupid thing!

  “Nice catch out there today, Robot-Mouth!”

  His hands jerked at the unexpected sound of a voice next to his ear, and the lock snapped open. Looking up, he found himself staring straight into the face of Baxter Knowles.

  “Wait a minute,” said Baxter with a grin. “You didn’t catch it. That’s right! Sorry, my bad!”

  This was followed by a chorus of laughter. Morgan looked around and saw that he was hemmed in on every side by a gang of Baxter’s buddies.

  “I guess you’ve heard the news,” Baxter went on. “About my dad tearing down your old church, I mean. To put up a new bed-and-breakfast. Looks like you’ll have to find some other place to do your magic tricks from now on.”

  Morgan got to his feet and yanked the chain through the ringing spokes. “Don’t tempt me, Baxter,” he said.

  “Ooh! A tough guy!”

  Morgan said nothing but turned away and began wrapping the chain around the seat post of his bike. In the next instant Baxter was upon him, gripping him by both arms, shoving him hard up against the jangling chain-link fence. Grunting with the effort, Morgan twisted to one side in a desperate attempt to escape, but Baxter stuck out a foot and tripped him. His feet flew out from under him, the sky spun over his head, and he
fell heavily, his backpack bursting open and spilling its contents over the blacktop: books, gym clothes, the remains of his lunch … and a small flask of fine white powder.

  “Look at this!” said one of Baxter’s accomplices, picking up the little bottle with a triumphant smirk. “What is it?”

  “Let me see!” commanded Baxter with a scowl.

  Morgan scrambled to his feet and made a grab for the flask as it went flying in a wide arc over his head. “Give it back!” he shouted as Baxter snatched it out of the air just in front of his face.

  “Why? Is it some kind of magic potion?”

  “I said give it to me!” Morgan lunged forward and flung out a hand, but two boys seized him from behind and dragged him back. “It’s medicine! For my mom!”

  A shade of doubt crossed Baxter’s face. “What kind of medicine?”

  “That’s none of your business!” Morgan fumed. “You can’t just—”

  But he never finished the sentence. A burst of wind and a storm of black feathers fell from the sky, thrusting itself directly between him and his bullying tormentor. Baxter threw up his hands as a huge crow, wings fluttering, beak clacking, and talons flailing, flew screeching into his face like a howling banshee. The other boys released their grip on Morgan and scattered like dry leaves in a gale. Dropping the flask, Baxter fled with a cry of terror.

  Left to himself, Morgan retrieved the jar and returned it to its place in his backpack with the rest of his fallen gear. As far as he could tell, not a single grain of the precious white powder had been lost. Looks like somebody’s watching out for me after all.

  The mist had lifted and become a ceiling of low-hanging clouds by the time he made the turn from Mission Street onto Compostela Road. Far to the west a thread of bronze sunlight crept in at the edge of the curtained sky and cast a strangely muted, almost surrealistic orange luminescence over the scene. The bright reds and purples of the bougainvilleas above the door seemed to glow with a phosphorescence all their own as he pedaled up to the Mission visitor center. Dropping his bike beside the wall, he shouldered his pack and stepped into the gift shop.

  “I’m sorry, young man,” said the woman at the counter, glancing up with a smile. “The last tour of the day is already in progress. You can come back tomorrow morning if you like. We open at ten.”

  Morgan’s cheeks burned. “I’m not here for the tour,” he stammered. “Can I just look around for a while?”

  “That’s fine. But you won’t have much time. The Mission closes at six.”

  He made his way to the back of the store and began thumbing through a rack of souvenir postcards. There were pictures of the Mission church, the cloisters, the cemetery, the chapel, and the gardens. There were cards bearing portraits of Father Junipero Serra and Father Juan Crespi and photographs of the restored cells and kitchens of the monks. There was even an entire section devoted to the high altar in the main sanctuary and the ornate gold and silver service used by Father Serra to celebrate the Mass. But there was nothing about a legendary Stone.

  Near the door leading into the courtyard he picked up a color brochure bearing the title Welcome to Mission Santiago de Compostela. Opening the little booklet he read:

  The Mission of La Iglesia de San Sebastian y Santiago de Compostela was established by Padre Junipero Serra during the summer of 1782, just two years prior to the founder’s death. A young Franciscan named Juan Bautista Alvarado de Ariello was instrumental in aiding Father Serra in this work, his longtime friend and companion Padre Juan Crespi having passed away at the beginning of the year.

  Ariello. So George was right. There was a connection between the Ariello family and the Mission. And Juan Bautista Alvarado de Ariello was the very name he’d given to the friar who once had personal custody of the miraculous Stone from Spain. Apparently the trail was getting warmer. Morgan shoved the brochure into his pocket and sauntered outside.

  Except for the gentle murmur of the water in the fountain, silence reigned in the Mission courtyard. Fragrant flowers—roses, lavender, jasmine, gardenias, honeysuckle, clematis—grew in rich profusion on every side of the square. Red salvias, pink hibiscus, blue hydrangeas, and orange poppies cheered the dullness of the damp gray afternoon. The all-enfolding quiet was comforting and almost palpable.

  Morgan stood in the light of the gift shop’s grated window and studied the gardenlike enclosure. The entire west end of the quadrangle was taken up by the basilica, a towering structure of gray and yellow stone with a domed bell tower on the left, a square pinnacle on the right, and a four-pointed rose window in the center of the high arching facade. In the far corner grew a mournful-looking cypress, while close at hand an ancient ficus cast its shade over a wisteria-covered wall. Apart from the trees and flowers, almost everything in the place was of stone: the walls, the fountain, the grave markers and monuments in the narrow cemetery, even the borders surrounding the flower beds. In spite of this, Morgan saw nothing that looked even remotely like a Stone of Destiny—at least not as he imagined a Stone of Destiny ought to look.

  He was about to cross over to the museum, a small adobe building on the opposite side of the square, when its door creaked open and a solitary figure emerged: a small, angular, bald-headed man in a shabby black suit. Morgan recognized him at once. It was Eochy, Madame Medea’s assistant shopkeeper. What’s he doing here? he thought. I don’t have time to talk to him right now! Averting his face, he scurried across to the basilica, hoping the odd little man hadn’t seen him. As discreetly and quietly as possible, he opened the big iron-studded door and slipped inside.

  As the door shut softly behind him, Morgan found himself standing at one end of a long, high-ceilinged, deeply shadowed space, somewhat smaller than the sanctuary of St. Halistan’s but far grander and more cathedral-like than any church he’d ever been in. The air was thick with an odor of incense that reminded him somehow of honey and milk. His footsteps echoed tentatively among the arched stone rafters as he scuffed over the pavement, past a basin of water and a brightly painted wooden statue of a pale-faced woman with a naked child on her arm. Six small chandeliers and a series of high narrow windows cast a dim light over the ranks of dark wooden benches ranged on either side of the center aisle. In the chancel at the far end of the building yellow candles glowed in a gallery of gilded niches recessed into the wall. Above the candles hung a carved crucifix, and under it, on a platform of stone, stood an ornate table draped with a linen cloth and decked with gold and silver vessels. A small group of tourists stood huddled at the base of the platform.

  “And this,” the tour guide was saying, her voice reverberating from one end of the hall to the other, “is the high altar, the heart and life of Mission Santiago de Compostela. The monstrance is made of pure gold and was brought all the way from Toledo in Spain. The two figures flanking the crucifix represent Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint James of the Field of the Star.”

  The high altar! Like a bolt of lightning, another line from George’s story flashed through Morgan’s mind: Jorge’s pillow stone was laid to rest in the little church … just below the altar. If they had placed the Stone under the altar while it was in Spain, they must have done the same thing here in California! If only the tour group would leave so he could get a look behind the table! Slowly he edged his way down the center aisle.

  “Unfortunately,” the guide continued, “the basilica hasn’t always been this beautiful. What you see today is the result of a long process of reconstruction and restoration. The California missions were ‘secularized’ in 1834, and over the next several decades Santa Compostela fell into a state of ruin and decay. To make matters worse, local ranchers and developers took to plundering the buildings for construction materials as the town of Santa Piedra grew. Many of the structures built in this area during the 1870s and ’80s actually contain pieces of the original Mission church.

  “Now if you’ll all follow
me,” she concluded amid a buzz of muffled voices, “we’ll just take a quick look around the cloisters before bringing our tour to a close. This way, please.”

  As the group exited through a door to the left, Morgan darted to the front of the church and leaped softly up the three stone steps leading to the altar. He found it separated from the nave by a low wooden railing and a gate of ornate Spanish ironwork. Feeling for the latch, he flipped it up. But even as he did so the double doors at the back of the sanctuary swung open, and a dull gray light spilled into the hall. He spun around and saw a silhouette on the threshold—the shape of a small, thin, bald-headed man. Him again! Morgan dropped on all fours, crawled down from the platform, and hid behind the first row of pews.

  Seconds passed, and all remained still. He was about to lift his head when he heard the sound of footsteps. Slowly they approached, with a measured and unhurried tread; closer and closer they came, straight down the center aisle. He held his breath, hunched himself into a ball, and jammed his body more tightly into the space beneath the bench. In the next instant a figure crossed the narrow space at the end of the row of seats—not the figure of Eochy, but a tall, dark-haired priest in a long black robe. Morgan breathed a sigh of relief.

  He slid to the end of the pew and peeked out. As he watched, the priest opened the little iron gate, knelt before the altar, crossed himself, and then stood for a long time with his head bowed. At last he took a long-handled, bell-shaped snuffer from the table, extinguished all but two of the candles, and turned to descend the steps. Morgan ducked. Again the footsteps passed, this time in the opposite direction. After what felt like an eternity their sibilant echoes died away and the great oak doors closed dully behind them. A deeper darkness fell over the sanctuary.

  Immediately he was on his feet, skipping to the top of the platform, jumping over the low wooden railing at a single bound. Slipping behind the altar, he got down on his knees and lifted a corner of the richly embroidered linen cloth. The flickering shadows cast by the candlelight made it difficult to see clearly. With pounding pulse and bated breath he thrust his head beneath the table for a closer look. What he saw made him gasp in surprise and disappointment.