Lucifer's Abbey

by Smith, Michael James

  “The truce that now exists between myself and Saladin whilst we agree a ransom fee for those that wish to leave will be short lived if he thinks that we seek to deceive him. The Treasury of this City is supplemented by King Henry's own Treasury, a Penance for the murder of Thomas Becket that should have funded the King's own pilgrimage. A pilgrimage that cannot now take place without Saladin's blessing. You will be given funds from King Henry's treasury to pay Saladin his ransom fee for you and your infantry men and I myself will inform him that you journey South in search of enlightenment at Bethlehem. He is a learned man and will not object to this. You must not seek to take anything of value without these walls. If they search you do not object. Should you succeed in your oath and come safely home to Normandy then you will find there awaiting you such blessings, both from King Henry and the Holy See that you will be enabled to live in comfort for the rest of your days. Your name will be honoured amongst us.”

  Heraclius stood and offered Walter San Saviour his hand. “For your bravery this past week I offer you my thanks as your fellow Knight and a fellow Templar. Go with God Walter and blessed be your name amongst Templar's for all time.”

  “Leave us now for what plans we must make it is better for you not to know Walter San Saviour.” Peter the Hermit said. “God be your guide!”

  When the door was closed Peter turned to the next knight along the table.

  “Godfrey of Flanders you I know will not shirk from your part in this deception. I have chosen for you a dangerous road from which only by dint of great endeavour will you ever now return to Bruges. You must make the longest journey and leave the longest trail. You will go North with as many monks as wish to leave the City. With Saladin's blessing you will visit Nazareth and go on across Syria to Damascus. Seeing you visit the heartland of his own strength Saladin will have his mind put at rest. He will also ensure your safety as pilgrims who travel under his own protection. You must use this cover to spread many rumours about your journey. From Damascus you will go on to Tripoli and there depart to Cyprus where you should for half a year travel extensively in the mountains of that fair island. Your onward journey you should plan for yourself but the more lands you visit and the more rumours you spread the more valuable will be become your mission. If it were my journey I would go by Constantinople and Athens and Rome. These are all cities much given to legends and stories. Their catacombs have hidden many a treasure so why not one more. Do you also wish to take your oath to this task?”

  Godfrey of Flanders gave his oath and Balian it was who escorted him to the door. “Should you come safely back to Europe there you too will find that a just reward awaits you, Godfrey. In Rome if you make it that far good friends will be awaiting you.”

  Peter the Hermit turned finally to William of Montferrat, the last remaining of the knights.

  “To you William who I have known through long years past, some parts of these things have been known as they were planned, and your role has already been an onerous one. Some part of that we shall not speak even to Balian and Heraclius save to say that your sacrifice is of the highest order and you are deserving now of any reward or assistance they can offer you at this time of the falling of Jerusalem.”

  Peter stopped and waited whilst the other two monks in the room withdrew from their robes a number of objects which they placed upon the table. A fivefold cross was given to each person in the room and they were told to hold them. A small silver cup was placed in front of each man and filled with water from the jug. Peter himself said a prayer as each was filled.

  The monks intoned a Latin Prayer several times in succession and then sat down and bent their heads and appeared to be going to sleep.

  Peter waited long minutes and the silence was heavy around them. Balian felt the temperature of the room alter and the candle flames shrank until there was very little light by which to see the sleeping monks.

  “What we must now discuss will decide the fate of all that we hold dear and even on the astral plane our defences must be sound. These Monks are, next to myself probably the most skilful astral travellers in Christendom. We must hope that the one who watches for the Dark Powers cannot see past their protection. In God we must now trust”

  Peter looked around him as though he was looking for other persons in the room. He waited until his own physic powers assured him that they were not being observed.

  When he spoke his voice was so low that Balian and Heraclius had to lean well forward to catch his words.

  “You William of Montferrat have made a pact with God. It transcends every other act of your life, should you fail to honour it your soul will be cursed and you will know the wrath of God. Is it still your wish to proceed?”

  William did not hesitate. His voice clear but soft and low was full of confidence. “I wish to honour my oath, Peter.”

  Peter hunched forward even further. “That which you have given to God is your own flesh and blood and will know an existence far beyond anything anyone here can imagine. Time will be as a ship in which that person journey’s and many are the dangers that lie in that path. Say now a prayer with me for their soul.”

  Peter prayed for a long time and their lowered heads did not move until he was quiet again.

  “The die is now cast and we must commit ourselves to our plan with whatever fortitude we can still muster. You Balian have an agreement with Saladin that your wife Maria Comnena and her consorts may travel safely to Tripoli. Under Saladin’s own protection they will not be searched. The sacred things for which we now bear responsibility must travel hidden within your entourage. Before they can make for the ship that awaits them Saladin's own guards will be their escort.”

  He paused and drank quickly. “You Heraclius and you Balian departing in separate columns will let it be known that you carry with you the most valuable of the Holy reliquaries and treasures. They should be prominently escorted and much ado should attend their security. Your columns should always be separate to those that are led by the Hospitallers and the Templars. At every point along the way as many trails as possible should muddle the waters of those who seek to read meaning to these events.”

  Both men nodded their heads in understanding but nobody interrupted Peter.

  “With Maria Comnena and the other Royal Ladies of the City my own Order will go. They have long been prepared for the hope of this. Their fate is well known to them and to them must be entrusted the hopes of mankind! Their place in this is shrouded in the dark mists of time, even should they succeed in bringing God's treasures to their new home they will still have yet a role to play. What that might be or when is beyond even my physic gaze. All we can do is pray for their eternal souls and trust in the Lord God.”

  Peter sat back and in silence they sat for a few minutes before Heraclius addressed them.

  “Tomorrow I will meet once again with Saladin and make sure that all we have agreed is to be honoured. The Treasury of King Henry and my own wealth will secure passage for the Latin Christians who wish to seek safety elsewhere and any others that Saladin will allow to depart. The Holy City must become once again a Muslim City until a new Crusade can be organised.”

  “My own wealth will be added to yours.” Balian said. “We will enable all those that we can to depart and in your carefully laid plans Peter we must put our hopes.”

  They left the room and Peter walked down a stone stairway until he was in a long dark tunnel lit badly by flaming torches, he hurried along it with the two monks at his heels.

  They entered a room that had been used as a Christian Chapel and he smiled at the young woman who sat there waiting for him.

  Isabella of Montserrat had a striking appearance. She radiated health and fitness and her blonde hair shone from the attention her servants had lavished upon it. At twenty years of age she was remarkably mature, a calmness emanated from her that would have been more in place in a much older woman. The daughter of the prominent Crusader Knight she was reputed to be a fine swordswoman and archer.r />
  She stood as Peter the Hermit entered and he waved her back to her seat.

  “Somewhere there is good wine from Cyprus,” he smiled, “no sense to leave it to Saladin, he doesn't drink alcohol!”

  Isabella sat down and he brought her wine from a large stone jug and poured it for her. “We will all miss the blessings of Jerusalem” He lifted his own goblet and drank deeply.

  “Isabella you are my favourite!” His eyes sparkled with mischief and she laughed.

  “Your list of favourites is longer than my arm you old fox!”

  “There you see it. That's why you’re my favourite! You can see right through me. Alas that my calling does not allow me to offer your father an irresistible dowry.” He laughed at his own words.

  “My father is aware that I would not be married except by my own choice, Peter. Although there are many that would rate you a fine catch. All that prestige and power of yours would certainly turn heads. Although they of course do not know you as well as I do. My father would not entertain your offer.”

  “Ah yes but I am a mighty persuader of people.” He leant towards her and became serious. “I've just persuaded a number of people to attempt the impossible, your own Father amongst them.”

  He smiled and placed a gentle hand upon her own.

  “The time for the happy banter that has been our joy together is past Isabella. The years of assisting your education have come to an abrupt end. I would that it were not so as much there is that I could still teach you but I deem that you are ready for the trials ahead. Your moment has come Isabella - just as I said it would and now we must trust to the learning you have taken from me to be your safeguard through the darkness ahead. Are you still willing to undertake the task?”

  “My Father has spoken to me of his own willingness to accept your plans and instructions Peter, although he has not shared his own plans with me. In accordance with your own wishes no word of mouth has betrayed any part of those plans. I do not know to what path you have committed him but I do trust that you have not done so without great aforethought. For my part I shall do as you have bade me to do in the knowledge that my duty to my father and to God and to yourself who has given so many days of your life to my teaching are fulfilled.”

  “We will spare the time Isabella despite the enemy at our doors or the greater enemy within our midst to recount some part of what you have learnt but we shall not be safe to do that here. A guard awaits us and you shall look now upon the cause of our troubles for the first time. If thereafter you wish to change your mind then there is no soul within this city or without that would place any shame upon you for you undertake a great and lasting responsibility. Let us go now to that place.”

  He led her by way of many rooms that she had never previously entered until she was lost in the catacombs of the Mosque. They emerged finally in a narrow alley and were met there by four of the former students of the City's Templar Knights. At the bidding of Balian they had taken the Knight's Oath themselves as Saladin's army surrounded the City. Their brief apprenticeship had been a bloody one.

  They fell in ahead and behind Peter the Hermit and Isabella De Montferrat and led them by unlit ways until Isabella realised that they had come to the walls of the Church of The Holy Sepulchre.

  Silently they entered by a small gate and were met by two men carrying a shaded lamp. The guards took up a position inside the gate to await their return. The men led Peter and Isabella across a small stable yard and then through an arch that led to a small dark alcove within the walls of the Church itself.

  It was unlit and Isabella had to watch carefully as the way now led down a stone stairway. They descended in silence until before her a large room opened out, across it two men stood holding candles. The entrance in which they stood looked as though it had been newly opened in the walls of the huge room.

  The six of them now passed through that small entrance and descended again. The way was very narrow, the walls about them old and crumbling. In several places they had fallen into such bad repair that falls of stones had occurred. They had to step amongst them for no attempt had been made to clear the tunnel.

  At the bottom another large room had been cut long ago from the stone of the Temple Mount above them. Assembled there were a dozen people who knelt praying before an altar lit by long white candles.

  Beside the altar Isabella De Montferrat saw a gold plated stand on which was stood something that she had read the description of many times in her Bible. The Ark of the Covenant.

  It gleamed in the candlelight, the two Cherubs on its flat top reflecting the light towards her. Below them the sides were burnished gold with many inscriptions upon it. Two gold covered staves had been inserted into looped mouldings to enable it to be carried. It was exactly as the Scriptures had described it, unmistakable and awesome.

  Peter led Isabella to the front of the kneeling group and bade her also to kneel, when she had done so he knelt beside her and placed within her hands a simple oaken cross.

  He said three prayers in a low voice and behind them the group chanted a response to each.

  “You see before you now Isabella De Montferrat a thing God himself ordered the making of. Within this Holy thing are stored the Laws of God which define the boundary between the Light and The Darkness. None there are that can be a servant of both. Every soul is free to follow its own path towards enlightenment or damnation.”

  He put his hands around Isabella's hand and gently clasped them to the cross she held.

  “One there is that returns to the physical world at every opportunity as the emissary of the Darkness. He has no purpose whether on the Astral Plane or the Physical, but to gain possession of the Holy thing which now rests before you and use the power that lies within it to open the Great Divide and call forth his Master from the Darkness.”

  For a few moments Peter the Hermit paused. He looked across at the Ark and Isabella followed his gaze.

  The air around it was shimmering and behind it the light seemed to be forming a pale shape.

  The voice of Peter the Hermit was soft beside her, known to her from earliest childhood. Trusted and loved.

  “For a thousand years this evil one has been unchallenged and the way has remained sealed only by the smallest of margins. It is time for the Light to have a champion too. The balance must be restored. It is this journey through time and into many conflicts that you have pledged yourself to go on God's behalf.”

  The translucent light was forming the feint shape of a tall slim bearded man. He stood now behind The Ark Of The Covenant and within his cupped hands he held a white dove.

  “Is it still your wish to serve God in this way Isabella De Montferrat?”

  “It is my wish.”

  The Cross in her hands became heavy and even as she watched turned to Gold.

  CHAPTER TWO

  TAKEN

  Cherie Leclerc is an excited teenage girl on her way to the village shops to buy new shoes and meet her friends. She has fifty Euros, a birthday gift of money from her Grandfather, more money than she has ever had in her life before - and feels like she is walking on air through the bright sunlight that bathes her rural village in the West of Belgium. The lovely day is perfect for her birthday party which is planned for the evening ahead and there are no clouds on her personal horizon whatsoever. She has never been so happy.

  Approaching a crossroads along a tree lined road that is well known to her she is singing as she walks. Cherie can see a large expensive car coming towards her across the junction. It glides to a stop beside her and she sees that there are two men and a woman in the car. They are dressed in expensive clothes and she assumes that the car is a Roll's Royce or some other exotic vehicle that she has never seen before. She is not alarmed by these obviously wealthy people who don't know where they are going.

  The smiling woman beckons from the rear window and Cherie bends to listen to her as she asks for directions to the road for Paris. On the opposite side of the car the front pa
ssenger climbs out holding a map and walks around to her side, he is also smiling.

  The woman's French is very difficult to understand and Cherie leans closer to hear her better just as a hand covered in some soft cloth is forced over her mouth. She recoils and struggles, but now she is also lifted off her feet as the rear door opens and she begins to lose consciousness. She is unable to prevent them pulling and pushing her into the rear of the vehicle - even before the door is slammed behind her feet she is unconscious, just a limp rag doll.

  The man re-enters the car and it speeds smoothly away for the road to Paris. No one in the car speaks. They have done this many times and are relieved that it has gone so smoothly. The driver checks his mirrors and there are no other vehicles or persons in sight.

  There were problems last time and he was not amused. Poor Bartholomew had paid the price of that mistake. He is still paying the price in his penance every day. There was nothing to complain about today so he would not have anything to punish. He would be watching and he would know. There was no way to hide anything from him. His power over them was absolute.