Ben kept the light on the eye. He moved a little closer to the painting and saw with astonishment that the red dot contained the twin-star-circle motif from the dagger blade and the notebook.
He remembered that Antonia had said the architect had been a jewellery maker in his time. You clever bastard. It was a work of almost unbelievable intricacy to have engraved the reflecting mirror with a minute yet perfect replica of the geometric design. But what did it mean?
He pulled the picture away from the wall and his heart leapt. There was a concealed safe behind it. He switched the lights back on and hurried back to examine it more closely. What might be inside?
The safe was from the same period as the house, its steel door adorned with enamelled designs in art nouveau style. In the middle of the door was a knurled rotary combination lock with two unusual concentric dials, one with numbers and the other with letters of the alphabet.
‘Oh, Christ, please–not more codes!’ he groaned. He pulled the notebook out of his bag. Folded between its pages was the sheet on which he’d written out the keys to crack the code. The combination to open the safe might be something from the notebook. But what? He flipped through the book. It could be anything.
He sat down with the notebook on his knee, guessing wildly at a few possibilities and quickly working out the coded versions in combined letters and numbers. First he tried the French for ‘House of the Raven’. It was a long shot, but he was desperate.
LA MAISON DU CORBEAU
He twisted the dials this way and that, entering the complex sequence. E/4, I/26; R/2, I/26…It took him a minute or two to dial up the entire phrase. He sat back and waited for something to happen. Nothing did. He sighed impatiently and tried another combination. The Cathar treasure.
LE TRESOR DES CATHARES
No good either. This could take for ever. He glanced at the axe lying on the floor and wondered fleetingly whether he should just hack the damn thing out of the wall and try to shoot his way into it from behind. He smiled to himself as he recalled what a grizzled Glaswegian sergeant-major had once said to him: ‘If in doubt, lad–resort tae violence’. Maybe it wasn’t a bad maxim, in the right circumstances.
Then his eye fell on the painting that he’d taken down from the wall, and he stooped to look at it more closely.
What an idiot I am. The key!
The large silvery key that the old man was clutching had something written in tiny letters up its shaft. He dropped down on his knees to read it.
LE CHERCHEUR TROUVERA
The seeker shall find. Ben grabbed his pen and feverishly scribbled the phrase out in code.
E/4, R/18; N/22, V/12, R/18, A/17, N/22, V/12,
R/18, A/11, A/17;
O/13, A/17, E/23, A/11, U/9, R/18, A/17, I/26
His heart was thumping as he dialled in the last number. From deep within the safe’s mechanism he heard a metallic clunk. Then there was silence. He grasped the handle of the safe door and yanked it. It held firm. He swore. The combination must have been the wrong one, or else something had gone wrong with the safe’s mechanism after all these years. The door was stuck fast.
A sound from behind startled him, and he twisted around as his hand went for the Browning.
The fireplace was opening. A gentle shower of dirt fell from the chimney as soot-encrusted panels swung slowly open to reveal a space just large enough for him to walk through.
Ben took a deep breath and stepped through the fireplace into the darkness. He flashed his torch around him and blinked at what he saw.
He was in a narrow room, some six metres long and three deep. At one end sat a large old oak table, covered in a thin layer of dust. On it rested a heavy metal chalice, like a huge wine goblet studded around the edge with iron rivets. Lying in the goblet, staring up with empty eyes, was a human skull. On either side of this grim ornament sat two iron candlesticks, two feet high with broad round bases and each holding a thick church candle.
His torch was dimming; he reached into his pocket for his lighter and lit the candles. He picked up one of the heavy candlesticks, and the flickering light threw shadow around the room. The toothless skull leered at him. Around the walls were dusty shelves lined with books. He picked one up and blew the dust and cobwebs off it. Holding the candle close he read the old gilt script on the leather cover–Necronomicon. The Book of the Dead. He replaced it and picked up another leather-clad book. De Occulta Philosophia. Secrets of Occult Philosophy.
It looked as though he was in someone’s private study, long since abandoned. He put the books back carefully on the dusty shelf and swept the heavy candlestick around him. The walls of the room were painted with murals depicting alchemical processes. He walked up close and studied one that showed a hand emerging from a cloud. The Hand of God? From the hand, water was dripping into a strange vessel that was being held up by little winged nymphs. From an opening at the bottom of the vessel there flowed an ethereal, misty substance scattered with alchemical symbols and the label Elixir Vitae.
He turned away and raised the candle to illuminate other corners of the room. Above the entrance he’d come through, a face looked down on him. It was an oil portrait in a broad gilt frame. The face belonged to a heavily built man with a grizzled beard and a thick mane of silvery hair. Looking out from under the bushy grey eyebrows, his eyes seemed to twinkle with a sense of humour that belied his stern expression. A gold plaque below the portrait read in stark gothic letters:
FULCANELLI
‘So we meet at last,’ Ben murmured. He moved away from the portrait and walked around the edges of the room, looking down at the floor. The stone tiles were partly covered by a dusty old rug. Beyond the edges of the rug he could see the outer parts of a mosaic pattern on the floor. He knelt and set the candlestick down with a metallic clunk. Clouds of dust floated up in the wavering light. He lifted the edge of the rug, and a large spider scuttled out and disappeared into the shadows. He rolled the rug up into a long tube and pushed it against the wall. He blew the dust away, revealing the coloured stone mosaic set into the flagstones. After a minute or two of brushing and blowing he stepped back to look at it.
The pattern was about fifteen feet long and took up the whole width of the study. Here they were again, the twin star-circles. At the exact centre of the design was a circular flagstone with an iron ring inset flush with the floor. He grasped the ring with both hands and pulled hard. There was a rush of escaping cold air from below.
He shone his torch down into the hole. The fading beam lit up a spiral stairway carved into solid rock, descending into blackness.
61
The long descending stone spiral carried him down into solid rock. As he corkscrewed deeper and deeper into the vertical tunnel, the sound of the storm outside faded away to nothing.
After a while, the staircase ended and met a level passageway that snaked off into the dark. There was only one way to go, and the only sound was his echoing footsteps and the drip of water. The smooth rounded walls of the tunnel were high enough for him to walk upright. It must have taken centuries to dig this out of the mountain terrain. A rough tunnel would have done just as well, yet whoever had created this had been interested in far more than utility. They were chasing perfection. But why? Where was the tunnel leading? He walked on.
Without warning, the tunnel snaked around a sharp bend and for a moment he thought he’d come to a dead end. But then he felt something stirring his hair. A cool breeze, coming from above. He raised the torch. There was a passage to the left, more steps leading upwards. He climbed on and on. It seemed to him that he was going up much further than he’d come down. That could mean only one thing–that he was now climbing up above ground level. He remembered the cliff next to the house, and realized that he must be inside the mountain. Deep inside it, surrounded on all sides by thousands of tons of solid rock.
His torch was getting dimmer. When it faded away to yellow and then to nothing, he stuffed it in his pocket and used his Zippo lighter to
see by. It was getting colder, and wind was whistling around him even though the walls of the stairwell were close and tight. His fingers were burning as the metal of the lighter heated up, and he was worried about the flammable fuel inside igniting if it overheated too much. Suddenly his foot missed a step in the darkness, and he slipped and almost fell. He paused for a moment, his heart pounding. He let the scalding hot lighter cool down for a while, then relit it and climbed on.
The stairway soon ended and Ben found himself in a chamber. He clambered to his feet. Holding up his lighter, he blinked in amazement. The chamber seemed to stretch out far and wide on all sides. He came to a stone pillar that seemed to grow out of the floor, all the way to the vaulted archways of the ceiling some six feet above his head. The pillar had been laboriously smoothed and carved, covered in intricate designs depicting religious scenes and icons. A few feet away from it was another similar pillar, and then another.
He swept the lighter-flame around him. Rows of golden crucifixes glinted in the flickering light. A huge altar stood in front of him, sculpted from solid stone and heavily adorned with gold.
He was in a church. A medieval Gothic church carved out inside a mountain.
Ben lit the altar candles. There were scores of them, all held by massive solid gold candlesticks. One candle at a time, the church gradually filled with amber light. He gasped at the size of the carved-out space. The wealth of it was staggering.
Then he saw the stone chests that lined the walls. There were dozens of them, knee high and a metre square. He moved closer. They were filled to the brim with gold. He sifted through one, his fingers raking through solid gold coins and nuggets, rings and amulets. There was enough gold in the church to make its finder the richest man in the world.
Carrying a heavy candlestick to see by, he went over to the towering altar. Carved in smooth stone, two white lions converging into a single head supported a circular stone basin that was some eight feet in diameter. Candlelight glimmered off the dark water inside. Around its smooth edge, carved in flowing letters, were the words:
Omnis qui bibit hanc aquam, Si fidem addit, Salvus erit
He who drinks this water shall find salvation, if he believes
At the feet of an angelic statue was a gold pedestal, and on it rested a long leather tube. Inside it he found a scroll. He delicately unfurled the cracked, archaic document on the floor and knelt down to study it. It was obviously medieval, though fabulously well-preserved. The writings on it were in a strange form of Latin that he couldn’t understand, mixed with what looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics.
He blinked as the truth dawned. So was this the legendary manuscript that everyone had been looking for? It was clear now that the papers Rheinfeld had stolen from Clément, the copy he’d made in the notebook, had never been more than Fulcanelli’s own notes. They were the alchemist’s record of the clues that had led him to find the manuscript itself. The same clues that would guide the next seeker who followed in his steps.
Now, faced with it at last, he understood the power of this mysterious document and the terrible hold it had had over so many people. There was no telling how much blood had been spilled on its account through the ages, either to protect it or to acquire it. It had the power to inspire evil. Did it also have the power to do good?
Something else had fallen out of the leather tube. It was a folded sheet of paper. Ben opened it. It was a letter, and he’d seen that handwriting before.
To the Seeker:
My Dear Friend,
If you have come so far as to read these words, I applaud you. This secret, which has eluded the great and the wise since the dawn of civilization, is now in your brave and resolute hands.
It remains to me only to pass on this warning: When success has at last crowned his long toil, the Wise man must not be tempted by the vanities of the world. He must remain faithful and humble, and forever be mindful of the fate of those who were seduced by the powers of evil.
In Science, in Goodness, the Adept must evermore KEEP SILENT.
Fulcanelli
Ben looked up at the stone basin at the foot of the altar. The elixir vitae was right there in front of him. His search was over. There was no time to lose.
He jumped to his feet, looking around him for some vessel he could use to take the elixir back to Ruth. He remembered his flask, and without a second thought he unscrewed the top and poured out his whisky, the liquor spattering on the stone floor. His heart thumped as he dipped the flask into the water and filled it. Did he believe? Could this special substance really cure?
Drops of the precious liquid splashed from the mouth of the filled flask as he raised it up from the stone basin. His curiosity was overwhelming. He put the flask to his lips.
The foul taste of it almost made him vomit. He spat and gagged, wiping his mouth in disgust. Holding the candle closer he poured more of the water back into the basin. It was full of greenish scum.
Ben fell to his knees, his head hanging. It was over. He was at the end of the road. He’d failed.
The sudden crashing explosion in the chamber was like a knife through his eardrums. One of the white stone lions split apart and collapsed. The basin cracked and fell in two. The stagnant water gushed down over the base of the altar and spilled in a slimy greenish slick across the floor.
He scrabbled to his feet in a panic. Before he could have the Browning out of its holster he was staring down the barrel of a heavy Colt automatic that was advancing towards him out of the shadows.
‘Surprised to see me, English?’ Franco Bozza rasped in his hoarse whisper as he stepped into the flickering light. His face was wild, bloody, a mask of pure hatred. ‘Drop your gun.’
Beneath his bullet-proof vest Bozza’s upper torso was still aching badly from the slamming impact of the three 9mm bullets. The long, twisting fall down the cliff had been broken by a tree. Its branches had ripped his flesh and almost impaled him. Blood seeped from a hundred cuts and his right cheek was torn open from mouth to ear. But he’d hardly felt the pain as he’d scrambled back up the cliff and made his way over the hillside in the raging storm. His mind had been focused on one thing alone–what he was going to do when he caught up again with Ben Hope. Things that even his most wretched victims hadn’t experienced.
And now he had him.
Ben stared at him for a second, then moved his hand across and slid the Browning from its holster. He dropped it on the floor and kicked it away from him, not taking his eyes off Bozza’s.
‘And the Beretta,’ Bozza said. ‘The one you took from me.’
Ben had hoped he’d forgotten that one. He slowly drew the concealed .380 from his waistband and tossed it.
Bozza’s pale, thin lips creased into a twisted grin. ‘Good,’ he whispered. ‘And now here we are together alone at last.’
‘It’s a real pleasure.’
‘The pleasure will be all mine, I assure you,’ Bozza croaked. ‘And when you are dead I will find your little friend Ryder and will have some fun with her.’
Ben shook his head. ‘You’ll never find her.’
‘Oh no?’ Bozza said, with what was almost a laugh in his voice. A black-gloved hand reached into his pocket and waved Roberta’s red address-book. After this I am going on vacation.’ He smiled. ‘To the USA.’
A sickening wave of horror washed over Ben when he saw the book. He’d told her to destroy it. It must have been in her bag when Bozza kidnapped her.
‘She will be the last to die,’ Bozza continued, grinning to himself. Ben could see he was relishing every word. ‘First she will watch as her family are cut slowly to pieces in front of her. Then, before I kill her, I will show her the little trophy I have brought her. Your head. And finally, I will turn my attentions to Dr. Ryder. For strong is the Lord God who judgeth her Bozza smiled sadistically and lowered the Colt, aiming down at Ben’s left knee. His finger tightened on the trigger. First he’d blow out one kneecap, then the other. Then one arm, then the other. Then, w
hen his victim was wriggling helpless on the floor, the knife was coming out.
Ben had been trained years before in the techniques of disarming a hostile gunman at close range. It was all a question of distance, though it was a desperate manoeuvre at the best of times. If the opponent was close enough it was relatively less insane to try to take the weapon away from them. If they were standing just one step too far away, it was virtually impossible to move fast enough. All it took was a flick of the finger and you were dead.
As Bozza was talking, Ben had been assessing the distance between them. It was just on the cusp between extreme high risk and recklessly suicidal. He knew he had only a slight reflex advantage, half a second at best. It was crazy, but he had only one life–he had to fight for it.
It took a tenth of a second to make his decision. He was about to fly at Bozza when the gunshot ripped the air.
Bozza’s craggy face froze in a look of surprise, his mouth opening in a soundless ‘O’ as he dropped the gun with a clatter and clawed desperately at the spurting exit hole in his throat.
The figure in the shadows raised the pistol again and fired a second deafening shot that crashed around the chamber. The top of Bozza’s head was blown away in a spray of blood and brains. For a moment he stood there as though hanging in space, his eyes searching Ben’s as the light faded in them.
Then he collapsed abruptly to the floor. His body gave a couple of arching, twitching spasms as the life left it, and then it lay flat and inert.
Ben stared incredulously at the dark figure, an almost ghostlike apparition, that was slowly advancing towards him from between the shadowy pillars. It was a woman. In the gloom he couldn’t make out her face.
The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET Page 30