Mostly, though, they just talked. Not about Remnants or Pharos or anything so exotic, but about the most mundane topics they could think of. Favorite foods, favorite songs, worst jobs (Rick and Kai won by a clear mile), dream vacations, and more. Every stupid thing that doesn’t matter at all except for when it does, they covered. It was a distraction, but it was also more than that.
Despite all the tests, neither Rick nor Estelle learned much more about what the Ark had done to them, or what it hadn’t. Everything about the incident, for example, led the scientists to assume that the Ark had been putting off extremely high-energy particles, the kind that cannonball through DNA leaving metastatic wreckage in their wake. Yet Rick showed not the slightest indication of radiation sickness. Not even a sunburn. The Pharos scientists, it seemed, were as in-the-dark as anyone else.
There was only one thing Rick and Estelle could be told for certain, when the exhaustive testing finally seemed at an end: no trace of Remnant material remained in their bodies. Either it had all been flushed out, or it had integrated seamlessly with their physiology. Whatever that might mean.
By the end of the third day, Rick stopped having visions. It was the first full night’s sleep he’d had in weeks.
Estelle’s sixth sense persisted. She kept it secret, however. It felt like something private, something only for her to experience. Even Booker didn’t know, though Estelle was pretty sure he suspected something was different.
On their fourth day they received the invitation from Nasim. She had returned to Paris, after a whirlwind tour of putting out fires that had taken her to the homes of important people in all corners of the globe. Would they be willing to meet with her?
None of them were under any illusions. Despite the polite phrasing, this invitation wasn’t optional. But with it Nasim also promised answers, explanations. Whatever reservations they may have had did not measure up to the prospect of leaving Cairo. Radical Dynamics-Egypt had been like a pleasant limbo: enjoyable, but ultimately just a waystop. They were ready to take the next step.
Towards what, none of them knew.
They flew into Paris on the same private jet that Estelle had taken to Addis Ababa and were chauffeured from Charles de Gaulle in a black driverless car. It was a typically muggy summer day in Paris, the sky overcast and the Seine swollen with July rain. A fresh downpour began as they were taken into the city, tapping softly against the roof of the car. Peering through the window, Estelle felt a frisson of excitement that bordered on anxiety to see the familiar cityscape. She thought of returning to her flat, to Toulouse. In that moment she wanted nothing more -- and yet she was afraid. As if she might somehow be denied entry to her old life.
“Any idea where we’re headed?” Rick asked.
She shook her head. “The Paris campus? There must be Pharos labs here as well.”
But instead of heading into the bustling center of La Defense, the car brought them to the 1st Arrondissement, to the banks of the Seine. The river hugged the bottoms of the bridges, and levees had been set up to keep it from spilling onto the streets. The rain continued as they pulled onto Rue de Rivoli, driving pedestrians and tourists off the sidewalks.
Booker gave a dry chuckle as their destination became apparent. “Of course.”
The car pulled through an elaborate gatehouse and came to a stop on Place du Carousel, beside a circular green patch of topiary that was the centerpiece to the roundabout, and Estelle knew that this was really the only place in Paris where this sort of meeting could take place.
Their ride came to a stop and they all climbed out into the sticky air and the warm rain. The vast plaza was perfectly empty, save for one. Nasim was waiting for them beneath a clear umbrella, perfectly framed from behind by the large glass pyramid that was almost more famous than the Louvre itself.
No sooner had Booker slammed the door shut than the car pulled quietly away, circling Place du Carousel once and exiting back through the same triple-arched gateway. He frowned after it. “Well, I guess there’s no turning back now.”
“As if you’d want to,” Rick said. Booker frowned at him, then shrugged and nodded.
“Thank you all for coming,” Nasim Al-Faradi said warmly. She looked worn out from the past days’ events, but still managed to be a commanding presence in the group. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t certain if you would.”
“Did we have a choice?” Rick sounded genuinely surprised.
“Of course.” Nasim nodded, meeting each of their eyes in turn. “You all have a choice. If you wish to walk away right now and return to your lives, I will not stop you. Or blame you. You will never see me again, and Radical Dynamics will not be a part of your lives.”
“Except for our electronics,” Rick said.
“And our clothes,” Kai added.
“And our cereal,” Rick noted.
Nasim smiled as if indulging a pair of precocious toddlers. “Yes, fair point. But Pharos, and everything that has to do with Remnants, will remain a distant memory. If you want it to.”
The rain fell, showing no sign of stopping. Booker nodded past Nasim, to La Pyramide, which played double-duty as a piece of modern art and the nearest entrance to the museum. “And if we take the red pill?”
“Then I will tell you everything. And you will have a new decision to make.”
It was an ominous proclamation, one that should have given them pause. But there was no need to discuss it. Estelle knew that for a certainty, could feel it in the low hum of her compatriots, picked up by her lifesense. So she nodded and said, “Let’s do it.”
* * *
Nasim led them inside, down the stairs that spiraled beneath the glass canopy of La Pyramide, to the vast atrium that sat beneath the plaza. This too was deserted; even the wide information desk was absent the dozen docents usually waiting to help mobs of shell-shocked tourists get their bearings and figure out where to begin. It gave the airy, usually-hectic space an oddly reverent feel, like a modern version of the cathedrals that dotted Paris.
“This is no accident,” Estelle said as they crossed the atrium, footsteps echoing off austere marble. “My father. He wasn’t just helping with renovations, was he?”
“Actually,” Nasim said, “he was. Le Louvre was his idea, for reasons you’ll soon find out. The renovations were real, but they also afforded us an opportunity.”
“For what?” Booker asked.
“You’ll see.”
They traveled down a corridor that branched off from the atrium. Past gift shops and bookstores with darkened display windows they entered a diamond-shaped room filled with the natural gloomy light of the surface. It filtered down through the unique skylight known as La Pyramide Inversee: a smaller replica of the larger glass pyramids that dotted the plaza above, flipped onto its head so that its based became a wide window to the surface that opened in the center of Place du Carousel. Its point hovered several feet off the marble floor, above a third, even smaller pyramid, this one wrought from stone. A gap of mere inches separated their points. The effect, while artistically and architecturally impressive, had always given Estelle mild anxiety. Some bizarre part of her was desperately frustrated that the two pyramids would never touch.
Nasim stepped up to the stone pyramid, knelt before it, and placed her hand flat against its surface. There was a distinct beep, and then she stepped back as the pyramid rolled smoothly across the marble floor, moving aside to reveal a square opening and another spiraling staircase.
The four of them stared, completely nonplussed. Rick began to laugh. Nasim glanced at him, lips twitching. “I always love showing that off.”
Estelle moved towards the opening and peered down. The staircase corkscrewed down to a considerable depth. “This has been here since --?”
“The renovation, yes.”
Almost seven years. “And nobody knows?”
“Nobody outside of Pharos.”
Estelle took a steadying breath. Somehow, she could still be thrown by the knowledge
that her father had kept such an immense secret from her for so long. Almost unconsciously she touched a finger to her star-shaped scar and steadied herself. This is who you are now.
They descended. The stairs curled down into a small square room, the walls and floor surfaced with marble. Recessed lighting along the perimeter of the room glowed soft as candles, and as the stone pyramid moved automatically to seal the entrance overhead, the room fell into near-shadow.
A large, stainless-steel door stood before them. Nasim stepped up to it and placed her hand against a small console mounted to the wall. It read her palm, then displayed a keypad. There were no numbers or letters, but instead what looked like Zodiacal symbols. She punched in the code, and the door slid slowly open with a soft hiss.
Another stairway, this one a less elegant, more rigid counterpart to the one they had just descended. Their feet clunked hollowly on metal steps as they followed it down, past several landings. Sconces mounted to the marble walls lit their way. Estelle’s ears popped as they reached the bottom. They must have been several stories below the museum by now.
One more door waited here. This one was wooden, set with large iron bands and mounted in a stone archway that looked decidedly older than anything they had yet seen. Nasim gripped a heavy metal ring and pushed it open.
“Welcome to the Library.”
* * *
Rick was first through the door. Despite his lingering trepidation about this entire meeting, he’d have been lying if he’d said the dramatic reveal of a secret entrance beneath La Pyramide Inversee hadn’t excited him. It wasn’t every day you discovered a hidden chamber -- although he was getting very good at it by now. Still, the journey down and the old doorway and masonry had only increased his anticipation.
His first impression was that, like the stone archway they had just passed through, this room was very old. It was large and barrel-shaped, the walls curving away to either side. The ceiling rose in a slight dome, supported by a cross of four buttresses that met at an ornate capstone in the very center. At a guess, he’d place the architecture somewhere in the Middle Ages, 12th or 13th century -- right around the time of the Third Crusade.
Yet, at the same time, the features of the room were decidedly modern. Scaffolding and large panels of clear plastic had been erected to hold crumbling sections of stone in place, and one of the buttresses had been replaced altogether with a sturdy steel brace. Clear, full-spectrum lighting revealed several rows of shelves, cabinets, and workstations, arranged in concentric rings that marched inwards towards a large round table at the center of the room. Between it all wound a bamboo walkway set several inches above the floor, presumably to prevent anyone from twisting their ankle on treacherous flagstones.
Booker whistled appreciatively. “Some library.”
“Oh, this isn’t all of it,” Nasim said. “But this is where it all began, in a way. Where Pharos first came to life.”
She led them deeper into the room, the large wooden door creaking shut behind them. They passed cabinets and shelves loaded with books and scrolls, clay tablets and thick folios bound in peeling leather. There was more than just documents. Rick saw an old brass astrolabe, a copper disc inscribed with what looked like constellations, a crude painting of a figure wielding some sort of staff, a shield bearing the red cross of the Templars. They seemed to span every era and come from around the globe. He couldn’t see what they had in common, but he was certain they hadn’t been chosen at random.
“What is all this?” Rick asked.
“Connections. Links in a chain that trace the presence of Remnants throughout all of history. They appear in our myths and legends, objects of great power, miracles made manifest. But it can be difficult to sort fact from fiction, to find the kernel of truth at the center of it all. Searching for a Remnant directly is like looking for a puzzle piece in an infinite jigsaw -- there are too many possibilities. So we look instead for the traces they leave. The ripples that persist throughout time and history.”
“And you’ve found these ripples all over the world?”
“We think so, yes. Virtually every culture has shared myths, legends built upon the same foundations. The enchanted weapon wielded by a king. The global catastrophe, survived only by a fragment of humanity. The teachers who arrived from the heavens and left behind their gifts to guide mankind. These same stories have been with us since the beginning, as have the Remnants.”
“But what does it all mean?” Estelle asked. “They can’t all be true, can they?”
“That’s what Pharos is here to determine,” Nasim said.
Rick pulled his gaze from the cabinets and shelves as they walked to study the room itself.“This chamber. It’s part of the original Louvre Castle, built by Philip II in 1190?”
Nasim smiled at him. “That’s right.”
“The Louvre used to be a castle?” Kai asked.
“Technically a fortress,” Rick told him. “Built during the Third Crusade to defend against the English while the king was away ravaging the Holy Land. It was rebuilt into a palace later, but the foundations of the old fortress were simply covered up and built over, so they’re pretty well preserved. You can actually see them in the, ah, the…” He trailed off, catching Nasim’s eye. “Sorry. It’s your secret hideout, you can do the explaining.”
“Not at all, you were doing a fantastic job. Yes, King Philip II built Louvre Castle to protect Paris from an English army camped in Normandy. But he also wanted a place to keep his riches safe while he was gone, and to store what he brought back from the Holy Land. A vault.” Nasim waved a hand to indicate the room around them. “So he had this chamber constructed, deep within the castle’s foundations, and stocked it with his greatest treasures. Later, it became a repository for the most important and most dangerous texts of the Royal Library.”
“I’ve never heard about that,” Rick said.
“Well, it wouldn’t be a very good secret vault if everyone knew about it.”
“Sure, ok, but that was almost a thousand years ago. The amount of activity that went on here ever since -- expansion into the royal residence, the wings and pavillions added during the Renaissance, the modern renovations -- how could nobody notice?”
“As you said, the foundations of the old castle were filled in with dirt and covered with new structures. This vault lies even lower than that. Also, it helps when the Knights Templar are the ones building your secret vault. The Templars built structures all across Paris. Numerous fortresses, many of which had their own hidden rooms and passageways. By the time King Phillip wanted his own fortress, their architectural prowess had become quite famous. They were the natural choice.”
“But nobody did know about this vault,” Estelle said firmly. “So how did you find it?”
Nasim turned to her. “For that I can thank your father.”
She blinked, taken aback. “He discovered it?”
“Not quite.” Nasim paused. They had reached the center of the vault, where the large round table stood. Through the surrounding shelves Rick could see another doorway, leading to who-knew-where. “I could explain how your father knew about this vault, Estelle. But there is someone else who would do a much better job.”
She turned, and everyone followed her gaze. From the maze of shelves and cabinets on the other side of the room stepped a small-looking man. He wasn’t very impressive in Rick’s estimation, with a round and friendly face. But, upon seeing him, Estelle gasped as if he were a ghost.
“Y-Yves?”
The man smiled in a way that Rick didn’t find totally convincing. “Bonjour, Estelle.”
“You -- you’re part of Pharos?” Her voice was strained with shock. But then she drew herself up, and her expression stiffened slightly. “Of course. Les Chevaliers d'Antiquités. It wasn’t just my father. It was all of you, wasn’t it?”
This man, Yves, looked wounded by her coldness. He opened his mouth to reply, but Rick raised a hand before he could speak. “Someone tell me who
the old guy is?”
Yves nodded. “Of course. I am Yves Poirier, a priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris. I was a friend of Martin -- Estelle’s father.”
“A priest?” Booker repeated, nonplussed. “Why’s a priest involved with Pharos? Ah, no offense.”
“Not at all,” Yves said, bowing his head magnanimously. “It must be strange, from the outside. But there is no inherent contradiction between my faith and the reality of the Remnants. The same was true for your father, Estelle. I can explain --”
“Please do.” Estelle had folded her arms and was radiating a frost that even Rick could feel. Yves hesitated, looking uncertain.
“Let’s sit,” Nasim said, pulling out a chair at the round table. “I’m sure this will be a long conversation.”
They took seats, Rick sitting between Estelle and Kai, Booker on her other side. Yves Poirier sat across the table, looking even smaller over that vast stretch of mahogany. Nasim placed herself between the two groups, hands folded. “Go ahead, Yves.”
He nodded, swallowing. Yves glanced at all of them, but his eyes always returned to Estelle’s. It was clear that he was here for her. “Before I speak, please understand that I have only done as your father wished. All of the secrecy, it was out of his desire to protect you.”
“Just -- get on with it,” Estelle said stiffly. “Les Chevaliers. It’s a front for Pharos, isn’t it?”
“No. Les Chevaliers d'Antiquités -- the historical society to which both Martin and I belonged,” he explained, nodding to Rick, Kai, and Booker, “is quite real. But our true kinship stems from a second group, one much more exclusive and tres older than Les Chevaliers. Older than Pharos or Radical Dynamics, or indeed any current organization.”
A Covenant of Thieves Page 71
