by W. Peever
Charlie looked up from his plate inspired. "So it's true, what Avery told us! The tablets, the treasure, everything!"
The old man gave a wry laugh. "Hope so, my boy. Course, never seen them myself, but I spent my life protecting this path expecting…well…you!" He sighed deeply and continued. "So, great-great-great granddaddy came over the ocean many years before Columbus, and landed right here, what's been Rhode Island for just a few centuries."
Armest took a gulp from his mug and looked over the table at his audience, three generations adrift. "That troop of Templar left clues all over New England, so that when the time came the right people could find the treasure. It was my family's job to make sure it was the right people who actually found the first marker, and your family," he turned to Colin, "to ensure the device was kept safe, for without it you'll never find the treasure. May I see it?" Charlie handed the golden astrolabe over to the old Templar. "What a beauty." He handed it back. "Now clean your plates, for if you're not at Newport Tower at twilight you'll never find the path."
"There's a Tower?" said Charlie excitedly. "But why twilight?"
"Not exactly sure—but that's your hint. I'll point you towards it—the Tower's not far."
The old man took them back down the hallway and out the front door. "Follow the road till you reach a park, in whose center there stands an old stone tower with a black fence around it. This time of day people are hardly around. Climb the fence and explore the Tower—the clue is there. That's all I know."
The five friends thanked him and set off running, hardly looking back. Still, the old man waved from the doorway till the children were out of sight. Slowly, his hand dropped, the smile faded, and he turned back into the church. He climbed the stairs that led to a modern apartment, walked through the open door, and closed and locked it behind him. A cell phone rang in another, closedoff room. Fumbling through a large ring of keys, he opened the door with a cuss. The phone glowing in the darkness in one corner, he flicked on the light. Slumped against the wall lay a dead man—old and frail, with the same tattoo on his wrist as Colin.
The man the children knew as Armest crossed the room and answered the phone, cursing as he stepped in a pool of coagulated blood that had soaked into the old green shag carpet of the dead man's bedroom.
"Pierce." The old man spoke gruffly into the phone, the kind platitudes and old timer accent now vanished.
The voice on the other end was calm but strangely mesmeric. Pierce listened in rapt silence before answering. "Yes, Lord Vali…dead." He kicked the body to check. "Yes, sire. I tortured it out of him…no more than the other bloke; just that the path is alive, and begins at the tower…I sent the children there…yes, followed…no, my Lord. I'll not fail you."
Pierce threw the phone on the real Armest's bloodied body. "You worthless sack. You waited for the chosen ones all your life and mere minutes before you could have saved them you go and get murdered; some guardian you turned out to be." He spat on the corpse in disgust and walked out, closing the door to delay discovery.
Starting off sprinting but slowing to a canter, a few blocks down the street from the church the five allies found themselves out of breath at an ancient-looking park, at the center of which stood a ruined tower.
"It's like we're in Scotland or England, somewhere European, not in the States," said Charlie.
"I know what you mean," said Tillie, gazing at the tower silhouetted in the orange and pink glow of the setting sun.
Mick, a head taller than Charlie, put his arm on his friend's shoulder to lean on him. "It's like we were drawn to this place. Have you ever been here before?"
Charlie shrugged. Bailey grunted disapproval. "You never paid attention on fieldtrips! Of course we have. It was a God-awful day in January, cold and sleeting. Mrs Halloran went on and on about how mysterious and wonderful this place was."
"Oh wow! I haven't thought about Mrs What-Hellwe-are-in, in years. That was like…" Charlie began to count in his mind, "a while ago."
"Third grade." Bailey tossed over her shoulder as she walked to the gate of the fenced-in relic. "Then you won't remember what she lectured about that day either. This tower…no one knew who built it or why. Some thought it was a signal tower the Vikings used and some that it was always a mill."
"Always a mill?" said Colin. "Used for a mill?"
"Back in the day they used what they could to survive. They added to existing buildings. This was a corn meal mill for a hundred years." Bailey added.
Colin deflated like a popped balloon, slumping to the ground and running his hands wildly through his hair in frustration.
"What am I not getting?" asked Mick. "So it's a building that's been used a lot. Who cares? It's still standing, so we can use it!"
Charlie saw the problem at once, and flopped by Colin on the ground. He'd always loved the smell and feel of grass at the end of a hot summer day, but not even this could lift the cloud that had descended. "We need the right runes to put in the astrolabe, Mick. If it's been used they might be buried under who-knows-what or gone altogether."
"But, well…" Mick stuttered. "Then why did the old knight send us here? I mean the clue has to be here—his family guarded it all these years. It'll be safe."
Colin took to his feet again, brushing himself off hurriedly. "They protected the secret. But he didn't know anything about the path itself. Just that it was real, and that it began somewhere at the tower at sundown."
"Why would it matter if we were here at sundown, or sunup, or in the middle of the night with flashlights?" asked Tillie. "We're looking for a rune, and I for one have not broken three nails, ruined my clothing, and narrowly escaped being eaten by a short fat mythical creature to turn around without at least looking." With an air of finality, the least outdoorsy of them grabbed hold of the fence and launched over it. She looked back at her friends with their mouths open. "Ten years of gymnastics!" she gloated. "Maybe they carved it on the outside; I mean they changed the inside for whatever, but not the outside."
"Well, the good thing about stone is that it lasts." said Bailey, following Tillie. "If the rock they carved it in is still here, the rune will be too. It's worth a look."
Mick turned to Colin and Charlie. "What's the plan if we can't find the rune?"
Charlie shrugged, leaving Colin to answer. "We go home, mate. No sense in trying all the different runes. It'd be like trying to win the lottery if there were a billion different combinations. We need to find each rune and follow the clues to the end. One dead end and we never find the tablets."
The thought of never finding the tablets that would translate Charlie's ring…it didn't bear thinking about. Not only would he never be able to reunite all the crystals but his chances of saving his father would be dashed. Charlie slapped both his friends on the back and ran to the rod iron fence of the Tower. "No time to waste then."
They searched for the better part of two hours before Charlie, leaning up against the cool stones, sank to the ground. He cursed the Gods. "It's not here. Someone's taken it, some lucky but stupid miller who doesn't know what he has. So the path of the Templar ends before it even begins."
In resignation as much as frustration, Tillie pounded on one of the hard rock slabs. No sooner did her hand connect than she fell to the ground in convulsions. Charlie rushed to her to cradle her head.
"What's wrong with her?" Bailey asked, worry in her eyes.
"I'm hoping it's just a vision." Charlie said.
Tillie stopped twitching, and slowly opened her eyes. "That was intense…" she whispered, as Charlie helped her up.
"Did you have a vision?" Mick prodded.
"Yes, they're getting stronger…more vivid…But they shouldn't be knocking me out like this…" she whispered, her voice just returning. Tillie got to her feet and sidled along the interior wall of the Tower, her fingers searching for something the rest of them had missed.
"By the way, Charlie…" Tillie said randomly as she kept busy, "You shouldn't touch me whil
e I'm having a vision. I really didn't need to know you're planning a change from briefs to boxers. Some fates should remain private." She smiled coyly at Charlie and for the first time since she had kissed him, Charlie felt that singular tingle of possibility. "But from what I gathered, you'll look spectacular in the blue silk boxers your mother will get you for Christmas…there!" she shouted, pointing at a small opening in the wall.
Charlie stood up, shading his eyes partly from the setting sun and partly from Tillie. Where she was looking at all he saw was a big hole where the roof should be and some stones missing.
"What are you guys looking at?" asked Colin, who had been searching the exterior.
"Don't know." Charlie tilted his head toward Tillie. "We might have found something."
Tillie rolled her eyes at him. "Well, leave it to boys to see what's not there instead of what should be there. The secret is in the placement of the windows and spaces on the Tower, as I just saw. It's why we had to be here at sunset. What do you guys know about the Mayans?"
"Didn't they project the world to end by 2012? Woops, they kind of lost that one!" Mick had appeared out of one of the many entryways to the Tower. "Not that I'm complaining. This wouldn't have been a good year for me to die—I mean, I haven't even kissed a girl yet." He quickly glanced at Bailey for any reaction.
"That stupid movie! You saw that disaster thing and believed the story." One of Tillie's pet peeves was people talking about movies as if they were learned scholars. "The Mayans never said the world would end. Their astrological calendar ended in 2012, and began again after all the planets aligned. Ugh!!!" She took a breath, attempting to dispel the annoyance that had seeped through her entire body.
"So what are ya sayin' then, Till? There's a connection here with the Mayans?" asked Colin.
"The connection is they mapped the stars and often aligned their buildings so the light would illuminate important statues at certain times of the year."
"Right!" said Mick, finding another movie connection. "Just like when Indiana Jones was in the Well of Souls and he used the staff that shone light and showed him where the Arc of the Covenant was buried. What a sweet movie!"
Suppressing a rising fury, Tillie remembered what one of her teachers did when exasperated—looked to the heavens and recited: Dear Lord, I'll praise them for what they get right. Trying to embrace the fact that Mick had found an analogy that the others understood, she swallowed her pride and continued.
"Right, like when Indiana Jones used the staff. Same thing! He used the sun's rays to show the way!" She looked at her friends to see if they saw what she was trying to explain. No such luck. "Look at the windows!" she shouted. Look how high they are from the ground, and all in the west side of the Tower! They catch the rays of the setting sun!" More blank looks. "Like in Indiana Jones." she choked out. "The rays of the setting sun should point to the rune stones."
All four of her open-mouthed friends looking on got the concept at the same time, and sighed a collective. "Ohhh!" Tillie rolled her eyes.
"That's why the old guy was telling us we needed to be here by sunset. Because that's the only time we'll find the rune stone," said Charlie, finally a convinced convert.
"Well, we don't have that much longer to wait," said Colin, gazing up at the paling blue sky with orange streaks through wispy clouds. "Should be any minute."
All five stood in the center of the circle, transfixed on the small block window, so focused they didn't notice a shiny black limousine pull up; nor three men in dark robes come out of it and spread out through the park's growing shadows of twilight.
Just as the sun sank to the horizon a single blinding beam of light streamed through the window onto a single stone five feet above their heads. As they looked at it now, they saw it was engraved.
"That's why we didn't see it, why no one has in over 600 years!" shouted Colin. "It's been out of sight of everyone since the wooden insides of the mill collapsed! Brilliant!"
"Get on my shoulders, Bailey," said Charlie, "and let's see that rune!" Bailey climbed up and the two-bodied, twoheaded entity wobbled over to the east wall of the Tower.
"It looks like a crucifix, a cross." Bailey hopped down, and drew the symbol in the dirt.
"That's not a cross," mused Colin. "It's Nied. It means a crossroads or, symbolically, think twice."
"It looks familiar, but is it on the astrolabe?" asked Tillie.
Charlie brought out the gold gizmo about the size of a large clamshell, and opened it. The arrow spun round and round, the numbers at the very center of the device steady on zero. "Must be confused because we're at the first marker. Look, there it is, the Nied cross. Okay, let's figure this out. We put the hooked X in the center of the first dial." He clicked the dial till the X was on the line directly in the center of the astrolabe, then spun the second dial till the Path of the Templar rune was in place and finally replaced a silhouette of a Tower on the final dial with the new rune of the Nied. The golden dials spun wildly and the number counter in the center sprung to life, coming to rest at 105.
"Well the arrow is pointing north-northwest. I wonder what the numbers mean," asked Charlie, hoping to prompt suggestions.
"Can't be degrees…maybe how many miles we are away from the destination," thought Bailey out loud.
"Ya, because the rest of the world uses miles!" said Colin sarcastically. "Those will be in kilometers I bet, so that's…" He scrunched his face, trying to make the calculation.
"About 65 miles," offered Tillie, wary of upsetting Colin further.
"We need a map!" Colin ordered, searching the entire perimeter of the park square for a store. "Let's head back to the church!" The young allies ran back up to the church road. Instantly they saw smoke drifting from the direction of the church, not wanting to believe but sensing instinctively that was what was burning. Two blocks further, and black clouds billowed out between the steeple slats and a flicker of flames could be seen through the stained glass windows. Colin reacted as their leader. "Call 911!" he commanded. "Get the fire department down here. Then meet me at that convenience store we ran past."
"Vanari?" suggested Mick, looking at the burning Templar Church.
"Must be," Colin snarled back. Mick and Charlie turned back towards the store
Tillie didn't turn, nor even blink. "Where do you think you're going?" she demanded of Colin in a way that sounded concerned and annoyed at the same time, how a mother speaks to you when you skip school to go iceskating, Charlie thought.
"I need to go see if he's still alive."
"Be careful," Tillie ordered. Colin nodded as their gaze locked for a moment. Then he was gone, disappeared into the smoke-filled church.
The smoke stung his eyes and he coughed as he first took it into his lungs, sprinting up the stairs to the old man's apartment. He burst through the door and called the man's name.
"Damn you, old man! Where the bloody hell are ya?" He searched the rooms he knew, finally checking the door of what was supposed to be a closet. It was no closet, but a full-sided room. On the floor through thickening smoke he made out the form of a man—an old man, unmoving and bloodied. It was not, however, the old man they'd met. Colin ran over and felt for a pulse—none. But there, further up his arm, was the same tattoo Colin had. A combination of smoke inhalation, gore and the fate of the original, true Armest—his kin by sworn oath of the Templar—overcame him as he sunk to all fours. He retched repeatedly in reflex before unloading what little was in his stomach.
That's when he saw them out of the corner of his eye, a set of keys and a wallet visible just under the bed. He snatched them up, took off his shirt to wrap over his mouth and hood his eyes as well as he could, then clambered downstairs—not to the front door but the garage behind the rectory. The fire hadn't spread there, and the smoke cleared as he entered the cool room. There were three cars parked, a hearse, blue Volkswagen beetle and mint 1957 Chevy Bel Air convertible in classic candy apple red.
No way, Colin thought as he
fiddled for the Chevy key. He opened the garage door wide, climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine. He drove, a little wildly, out of the church just as the first of the fire engines came rushing around the corner.
Chapter Ten Country Road 295
Charlie tagged along behind Tillie, back and forth past the slushy machine in the convenience store, trying to calm her down. She had called Charlie and Mick every name in the English language and now was beginning to swear in French. She couldn't understand why at least one of them hadn't gone with Colin—why they didn't feel he warranted their protection. It wasn't the cussing that bothered Charlie, but how much Tillie obviously liked Colin that was worrisome.
"There was no time to argue with him. Every minute counted and he wouldn't have listened," Charlie tried to explain. The words seemed hollow even to him, as guilt for Colin's fate wrapped around his throat, making it hard to swallow.
"I don't care! You should have at least followed him! To keep watch—even if he didn't know you were there." Tillie realized as the words came out that she was being unreasonable, that it wasn't Charlie and Mick's fault Colin was a reckless loner. But she was so angry and scared, logic flew right out the window.
"I'm sure he'll be alright, Till." Bailey offered, and wrapped her arm around the other girl's shoulders. "He's a bright guy, capable and strong—nothing like this lot. If they went with him then we'd have cause to be scared. Colin knows what he's doing." Despite the brave words, Bailey's blurry eyes fixed on the plate glass window of the storefront.
Mick motioned for Charlie to follow him behind the Hostess snacks rack. Together they disappeared from the girls' view behind a wall of Twinkies. "So?"
"So what?"
"So, Charlie, how long do we wait here for Colin to get back? It's obvious something is wrong. I mean, a church doesn't just catch on fire. Something's up, and Colin just jumped right into the thick of it. We have to assume the worst."
Charlie nodded his agreement. He hoped their new friend was okay, despite his mixed feelings. Colin was on their side—and staunch. In the coming years, Charlie knew, they would need as many allies as they could get, especially if the Gods were going to bring their war to Earth.
