Ruben turned to Avery, who avoided his gaze.
‘You want me to seduce her?’ Ruben said, his voice filled with anger. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
‘That’s exactly what we’re saying,’ Zinetti said, and then glared at Avery. ‘Even though Cardinal Cantrell seems incapable of asking you, despite what’s at stake. The surface of this planet rests in the balance. Imagine the lives you could save.’
Ruben shook his head in disbelief. ‘This is what you want?’ he said to Avery. ‘You want me to break my vow before God?’
‘No!’ The Irish cardinal reached out a hand to him. ‘No, of course not. But your presence may bypass her defences. You said it yourself, the attraction between you is mutual. If you could comfort her, win her trust, she may tell you what she knows. Or give you a clue as to what she’s suppressed.
‘Whatever possesses her, is not her,’ Avery continued. ‘She is not what she’s done, or what she will do. She’s the soul within.’
‘And if things did go further than you’d like,’ Zinetti said, ‘it wouldn’t be the first time, or the last, a man of God gave in to temptation.’
Ruben swept back his hood and fixed the Italian with a fearsome look. ‘What are you implying?’
‘Avery told me about the little kiss you shared with her,’ Zinetti said, failing to hide a smirk of superiority. ‘If it’s true, you may already be infected. So, if you’re worried about transference, it’s a little late, don’t you think?’
Ruben said nothing, the focus of his fury reverting back to Avery.
‘Surely saving billions of lives is worth suffering such another disturbance to your chastity?’ Zinetti said. ‘Or is the great man willing to let others die so he can survive without torment?’
Ruben stepped forward, grasped Zinetti’s coat and dragged the prelate towards him. ‘You go too far,’ he said, between clenched teeth, ‘Your Eminence.’
‘Is there a problem, here?’ Major Lanter said. The leader of the Swiss Guard was flanked by two of his red-clad soldiers.
Ruben stared into Zinetti’s terrified eyes and then released his grip.
‘Everything’s fine, Major,’ Avery said. ‘Just a difference of opinion, that’s all.’
‘Such differences of opinion can land a man in prison,’ Lanter said, eyeing the monk with a steady gaze.
Ruben ignored him and the major waited in silent sentry for a moment, before Avery waved him away and the Swiss Guard’s leader returned with his men to oversee their departure.
‘Ruben, my son,’ Avery said. ‘Please, Sarah’s drugs have taken their toll. We need something equally powerful to break through her malaise and distrust.’
‘I will not trick her into some kind of tryst, to induce a revelation.’
‘Then you condemn the surface and our flock to ash and bone,’ Zinetti said, readjusting his coat. ‘Your selfishness surprises me, Ruben. Most men would jump at the chance to seduce a beautiful woman.’
‘There will be no seduction,’ Avery said. ‘And I do not ask you to break your vows. That’s a choice between you and God. Just go to her. I’m not saying force yourself on her, but if a little comfort, even a little intimacy, might elicit the truth we seek ... a holding of hands perhaps. It’s at least worth attempting, don’t you think?’
‘It would be a sin, not to,’ Zinetti said.
Ruben stared at the men before him. What Zinetti asked of him was too much. And yet he knew Avery spoke the truth, at least in part. If he was the key to getting Sarah to reveal another way into the tunnel system, part of which might still lead them to the elusive Heaven’s Gate, then it was his duty to do so. The gate, he thought, an ancient device designed to stop asteroids. He still couldn’t believe it was true, but the cardinals seemed convinced, even if he wasn’t. And who was he to question them, or the Vatican, or the Holy Father himself? He was no one. A foot soldier of God. But as he thought about the task he had been set, a deep sense of fear grew within him. He’d worked for well over a decade to control his natural urges and it was only recently he’d felt the true betrayal of carnal desire, awakened by the very woman he was now set to engage by duplicitous means. The cardinals knew what they asked of him, which made it all the worse, for the resistance he felt to their request was all-encompassing. His mind screamed at him to run away, to flee that which he desired most, while his body urged him forward like never before. He’d be given the green light to break the foundation of his faith, or, as he looked at it, to test its strength like it had never been tested before. He just hoped he could get the information they wanted without breaking his vows, for if it wasn’t the end of the world, it might well be the end of him.
Chapter Two Hundred
Sarah Morgan sat at the base of a small mountain, two hundred feet above the Mongolian plateau. She’d been there all day, watching from afar as the Vatican expedition prepared to leave the dig site and the long abandoned Anakim city that lay buried beneath the surface. A cold wind ruffled her blonde hair and whisked up small dust devils, as the sun dried out the terrain and the seasons turned. Summer was coming, but so was the end of the world.
It had been just before daybreak when the tunnel had collapsed, sealing the fates of the surface and Trish and Jason along with it. Since that time, Sarah had regained her senses after her wretched failure and subsequent injection of drugs. But rather than face those who despised her, she’d gone somewhere to be alone, and now stared into space, her only consolation for the loss of her surrogate family, the blue drug, which was now the only friend she had left.
She picked at the stones at her feet and then held some up in the palm of her hand. They glinted in the sunlight and she wondered again if her purpose was as inconsequential as these stones. She stared at them for a moment longer and then let them spill to the ground. The world was coming to an end and the first asteroid was about to arrive. The last stone fell from her hand and hit the ground. What is the point? she thought. A washed-up archaeologist, with no friends, no family, no purpose and no life. ‘What is the point,’ she said out loud. ‘What is the point of me?’ She flicked a stone down the mountainside. ‘No one cares about me. No one cares if I live or die. What is the point?’
‘God cares.’
Sarah jumped and turned to see Ruben walking towards her. She wondered how she hadn’t seen him leave the camp, but then half the time she’d been looking without seeing, her mind lost in a dark future.
Sarah sighed. ‘God? God has abandoned me, if he ever existed in the first place.’
Ruben sat down beside her, the rough cloth of his grubby brown robe getting grubbier still.
‘He exists,’ Ruben said. ‘And he never abandons us. It’s we who abandon him.’
Sarah frowned, but didn’t comment as she no longer cared.
‘You may not know this,’ Ruben said, ‘but self-pity is a deadly sin.’
‘Did I ask for your advice?’ she said, the anger in her voice matching her glare. ‘Why are you here, anyway?’
‘They sent me to find out what you know.’
Sarah grunted. ‘They still think there’s another way inside, don’t they?’
‘Yes. The gate is yet to be found. And there might be another way into the tunnel complex, or what remains of it.’
‘I already told Avery, I don’t know anything.’
‘You might think you don’t, but somewhere deep inside you may hold the answer we seek.’
Sarah clenched her jaw. They just didn’t know when to quit. ‘So you think I killed all those people? You think I’m capable of that?’
‘Man is capable of great evil,’ Ruben said.
That’s a ‘yes’, then, Sarah thought, the doubt in her own mind about her innocence compounding his answer. ‘Why don’t you concentrate on what we do know?’
It was Ruben’s turn to frown. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The man who spoke in tongues and the frieze, they said the same thing. Beware seraph’s love. Its opposite is in us.’
‘Cave seraphim amoris,’ Ruben said in Latin, remembering the tape recording and the demonic voice of the dying explorer. ‘Contrarium est in nobis.’
‘You were the one that told me God speaks to us. Perhaps you and Avery are the ones who’ve abandoned him, as I heard him just fine.’
‘I have been thinking about what we heard,’ Ruben said, ‘but it doesn’t help us solve our problem. And the final message was not from God.’
It was Sarah’s turn to recall the voice. ‘They know we are here,’ the man had said in Latin. ‘It’s too late, they are coming. They are coming.’ And then, when they’d slowed the tape further, the voice had turned more sinister. ‘We know you are listening,’ it had said. ‘Death is coming. Death is coming for you all.’ A sense of unease stole across Sarah. A dark cloud momentarily blocked out the sun and she found herself moving closer to Ruben, who shifted in discomfort.
If the asteroid threat was real, which Sarah no longer doubted, having seen what she had – humanity had prepared for extinction like the Anakim before it, and the underground bases were like the ark of Biblical renown – then the voice from the dying man was frighteningly accurate, except it remained to be seen who was coming, and from where. Sarah shook her head as she tried to make a connection she knew she should be making, but try as she might, her drug-fuelled mind wouldn’t relinquish its secrets and the more she tried to force it, the emptier her head became.
‘So, the words are meaningless,’ Sarah said, feeling frustrated.
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Ruben said.
Sarah looked at him. ‘Go on.’
‘A seraph is a being of light and purity.’
‘An angel?’ Sarah said.
‘Yes, the seraphim are the highest order of angels in the ninefold celestial hierarchy.’
‘So, the opposite is what?’
‘A demon,’ Ruben said. ‘A being with opposite attributes of a seraph, full of darkness and impurity.’
‘So, beware a demon’s hate?’ Sarah said. ‘That’s pretty obvious.’
‘Hate is not the opposite of love,’ Ruben said, looking uncomfortable. ‘The opposite of love, is lust.’
‘What? That’s ridiculous, and even if it was, that means we need to beware of a demon’s lust. That makes no sense.’
‘I once told you God speaks to us,’ Ruben said. ‘I can prove it, and I can also prove lust is the opposite of love and why we should fear it.’
‘You can prove God speaks to us?’ Sarah was intrigued despite herself. ‘Go on then, astound me.’
Ruben removed a small computer from the white tunic he still wore beneath his brown robe. He switched on the screen and then said, ‘What is the root of all evil?’
‘That’s easy, money.’
‘Wrong. Lust is the root of all evil.’ He drew two words on the screen with his finger and the computer transformed them into digitised text:
Good V Evil
‘A simple enough concept.’ He drew two more words on the screen.
Soul V Ego
‘Slightly more complex than the first, but still easily understandable, agreed?’
Sarah nodded.
He drew two more words:
Love V Lust
‘Now, this is the interesting bit, what is the reverse or opposite of this statement?’
Confused, Sarah screwed up her face. ‘I don’t know. Lust v love?
‘No, I mean literally. “Love v lust” spelt backwards.’ He pressed a button on the device and then typed the text out in reverse.
tsuL V evoL
‘That’s exactly how it’s spelt in reverse, agreed?’
Sarah nodded.
‘What does it say?’
‘It gibberish. It says nothing.’
‘Is it?’ Ruben said. ‘What if I clean it up a bit?’ He capitalised the words.
Tsul V Evol
‘What about now?’
Sarah shook her head.
‘What about if I say the ‘T’ is silent?’
Sarah’s eyes widened. ‘Sul versus evol.’
‘Yes, soul versus evil.’ He entered the text beneath it.
Love V Lust
Tsul V Evol
Soul V Evil
‘So, the reverse, or opposite, of love, is evol: evil,’ Ruben said. ‘And the reverse, or opposite of lust ...’
‘Is our soul,’ Sarah said, amazed.
He entered more text on the screen.
Lust = Evil
Love = Soul
‘A message hidden inside our own language,’ Ruben said. ‘A coincidence? I don’t think so.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘It means if we operate from the soul, we are content and love peace, humility and intimacy, and we respond positively to life, perpetuating joy, compassion, creativity, truth, integrity and wisdom. If we operate in reverse, operating from the ego, we are discontented and lust for power, money, status and sex, and we react negatively to life, perpetuating hate, destruction, chaos, deceit, corruption and ignorance. What happens if we live in reverse?’
Sarah shrugged.
He typed the word ‘live’ on screen:
Live
‘Spell it backwards,’ he said.
‘Evil.’
‘Yes, evil. Or to put it another way: lust equals evil. Which written in reverse, is: live equals soul. If we live life from our ego, we’re living backwards and are evil. If we live life from our soul and respond to life rather than reacting to it, then we’re living in the moment and we’re good. Or with good, with God.’
Sarah looked at him. ‘So, if I lust after someone, I’m evil?’
Ruben held her gaze. ‘No, but it is of evil, impure and not of God. Desire them – yes. See the divinity within and who they are: a person with hopes and dreams, but never an object of lust, a thing from which you derive pleasure. Lust attracts lust and evil begets evil, and if left unchallenged, it will ruin your life.’
It’s a bit late for that, Sarah thought. Wondering if the words really did mean God spoke to people through language. ‘Some people would say if you look hard enough for anything, you’ll find it.’
‘And they’re right,’ Ruben said. ‘Seek and you shall find, as the Bible says. I sought God’s word, and I found it. If you believe it’s a coincidence, your belief becomes your reality and you have proven it to yourself that it is so.’
Sarah looked at Ruben anew, there was far more to this man than she knew. ‘So, when the voice said to beware of the seraph’s love, it meant its opposite, lust, is in us.’
‘Yes.’
‘And that helps us, how?’
Ruben was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Apart from warning us we are all susceptible to lust’s evil, I don’t know. But it proves to me, if not to you, that God is always with us, guiding our way, and our reality is as we make it. Our beliefs create our reality. If I believe I am a failure. I will be a failure. If I believe I am a success, I will be a success. If I believe I am nothing, I will become nothing.’
‘And if I believe I’ve failed?’ Sarah said, already knowing the answer.
Ruben looked her right in the eye. ‘Then you have.’
Chapter Two Hundred One
Sarah considered Ruben’s words and knew them to be true. She thought about her lust for the drug and how, even then, she craved the sweet release it always delivered. ‘And if we’re lost to lust, to evil, then what?’
‘If we know the lust is keeping us alive,’ Ruben said, guessing her intent, ‘then we have to believe that our life is worth living and then it will be so. If we know our lust is not necessary for us to remain in the land of the living, we root out our lust at any cost, or we will remain chained to its evil. And when God sees fit, he will set us free.’
Sarah was about to ask how God would achieve such a feat, when movement caught her eye on the mountain above them. A trickle of stones cascaded down its rock-strewn surface and she stood up, her heart racing.
‘Sarah?’ Ruben said.
But Sarah wasn’t listening. She looked further up the mountain and caught sight of a woman disappearing behind an outcrop of rock: a woman with blonde hair.
Sarah scrambled forward and set off in pursuit.
‘Sarah!’ Ruben shouted from behind. ‘Where are you going?!’
♦
Sarah slipped and slid on the loose surface as she scrambled ever higher up the mountainside. ‘I’m not a killer,’ she said, trying to instil the belief in herself. ‘I’m not a killer.’
She reached the place where she’d seen the woman and looked around, frantic to see where she’d gone.
Ruben arrived moments later. ‘Sarah,’ he said, out of breath. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘She’s not here,’ Sarah said, and then spied a cave-like opening a little higher up and set off again.
Ruben cursed and ran after her.
It wasn’t long before they both reached the opening and peered into the darkness within.
The cave was large, very large, and its interior quickly vanished into shadow, the sunlight from without unable to penetrate its depths.
Ruben withdrew a flashlight and turned it on, illuminating weathered walls within.
‘I saw someone,’ Sarah said. ‘A woman with blonde hair.’
‘Sarah.’ Ruben touched her arm.
She looked down at the contact and he removed his hand.
‘There’s no one here,’ he said. ‘There’s no one else out here but us.’
‘What about Konstantin? He’s still out here, somewhere.’
‘There are no women amongst his knights, you know that.’
Ancient Origins: Books 4 - 6 (Ancient Origins Boxset Book 2) Page 106
