The Lake of Learning

by Steve Berry

  At the edge of the stream she shined her light into the water, then bent down, dipped a finger in, and brought it up to her nose. No odor. Probably clean from being filtered through the limestone. She was thirsty, but the bottled water in her pack was far safer to trust. No telling what long forgotten bacteria might lurk here.

  She washed her light over the walls. More paintings came into view. A horse, bison, wild goat, and the curved, branched antlers of a reindeer.

  Then she saw it.

  Set apart. By itself. Much larger than the other images. A bison, painted in a flat red tint with the horns, spine, and tail outlined. More engraved lines emphasized details. Head down, feet thrust forward, back arched. It seemed to snort with rage and pain, thrilled with life.

  “Bèstia roja,” she said. “Now we know what those words meant in the manuscript. Red Beast. That’s one of the largest drawings I’ve ever seen.”

  Her light also revealed that the stream bulged toward the image on the wall, forming a small lake, one that shimmered like a sheet of wrinkled tin foil.

  Coincidence?

  Or was that there eight hundred years ago?

  She saw a niche in the limestone wall, about a meter up from the water. On it rested another religious casket, similar to the one that had come out of the ground. Shiny.

  Golden.

  Simone dropped to her knees and prayed to the God of Good, thanking Him for all His wisdom. She’d accomplished what no other Perfecti had managed. She’d found The Truth.

  For I say that just as it is impossible for that which is past not to be in the past, so it is impossible for that which is in the future not to be in the future. This is especially true in God, who from the beginning understood and knew that which would come to pass, so that existence as something still to come was possible for an event before it occurred. God Himself is the sole cause of all causes, and above all if it is fact, as the opponents of truth assert, that God does whatever pleases Himself and His might is not affected by anyone.

  Those sacred words had been proven true.

  Once the Good Christians dominated all of southern France, winning the hearts and minds of the Languedoc. It had taken a genocidal and generation-long crusade to silence them. For centuries all the Cathars had of that past was the Book of Two Principles, the last surviving witness against orthodox theology. Seven sections long, about 35,000 words, written in the 13th century, but confiscated by the papists in the 14th century, where it remained until 1939, when it was finally published after six hundred years of suppression.

  But was it authentic?

  Had it been altered?

  Nobody knew.

  But here waited the Truth. Unaltered. Unchanged. Exactly as it had been when written. While the Cathar world crumbled, and they willingly died by the thousands, the Truth had lain right here, at the end of the Path to Light.

  She stood from her prayer and decided not to remove her boots or socks or roll up her jeans. Just go. “I’ll take a look.”

  She kept the backpack on and stepped into the water. Surely cold. No. Freezing. Thankfully it was little more than ankle deep and her boots offered some insulation.

  The lake itself was more a giant puddle, about ten meters across to the other side where the great red bison waited. One hand held the flashlight which she kept pointed ahead, keeping a watch, making sure the water stayed shallow.

  She slushed her way to the other side and stepped out.

  In the niche, beneath the red bison, about chest high for her, rested another gold casket, similar, but a bit larger than the one found at Givors. She stepped close and saw that the top was encrusted with precious stones. There were also tiny crosses, chalices, miters, and scepters, all crafted of gold. Cabochon rubies and amethyst stones formed a small crown on top.

  “This had to be stolen,” she called out. “It looks Catholic. My guess is that they knew this was not the best place for wood or base metals. So they used a reliquary from a church, since gold lasts forever. Just like they did when they buried your manuscript.”

  “Open it,” Vitt said.

  She agreed, though the archeologist inside her said no. But this was not a scientific mission. Far from it. This was a quest.

  She dropped the pack off her shoulders and laid the flashlight down in the niche. She noticed that the edges beneath the lid were sealed with what appeared to be wax. She found her pocket knife and scored the edges all the way around, the brittle wax chipping away in pieces. Then she gripped the two short sides of the lid with the palms of her hands and wiggled it free, lifting it off and setting it on the ground.

  She grabbed the light and looked inside to see a thick pile of unbound vellum sheets. She carefully extracted them and saw line after line of writing. No colorful gilded illustrations. No fancy letters or beautiful calligraphy. Just ordinary script. Thoughts from centuries ago.

  The Truth.

  “What is it?” Vitt called out.

  She read the opening words.

  Since many persons are hampered in rightly understanding the truth, to enlighten them, to stimulate those who do have right understanding, and also for the delight of my soul, I have made it my purpose to explain our true faith by evidence from the Holy Scriptures and with eminently suitable arguments, invoking to my efforts the aid of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

  A chill swept through her.

  “Our bible,” she said.

  Cassiopeia heard the words.

  Our bible.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “I’m the senior Perfecti of the living Cathars. And this is our greatest treasure.”

  “You’re the one who tried to steal the book, aren’t you?”

  “So many books and articles talk about the Cathar treasure in terms of gold and jewels. What a joke. It was never that. Instead”—and she motioned with the sheets—“these words are our treasure.”

  She noticed how her question had been ignored, yet answered.

  “For Catholics and Protestants, the oldest Bible that exists anywhere in the world is from the 10th century,” Simone said. “No one has a clue what the original text, written centuries before that, actually says. We only know what those who translated and interpreted it say it says. But here. Here we have the original words, preserved and kept safe for all time. A true treasure in every sense of the word.”

  Simone seemed entranced, gesturing with the sheets like a preacher from the pulpit, her voice rising and lowering in waves.

  “We need to leave,” Cassiopeia said, thinking it best to deal with the situation once they were back in fresh air.

  “I don’t think so,” a male voice declared.

  She whirled around.

  Roland Beláncourt stood just beyond the tunnel entrance, holding a gun, aimed straight at her.

  Chapter 22

  Cassiopeia aimed her flashlight toward Beláncourt and saw his face, alert with purpose, pinched with tension, his dark pupils darting back and forth like warning signals. He was not his usual perfect self. More like a man roused from sleep, hair ruffled, stubble on his chin.

  “Lower that light,” he said, motioning with the gun.

  She did as told.

  Across the shallow pond Simone stood, the pages in one hand, a flashlight in the other. Cassiopeia wanted to ask how he’d found them, why he was there, and more. But decided on a question that seemed to encompass it all. “What did she do to you?”

  “She killed our child.”

  “Your marriage was childless.”

  Simone made a move. Beláncourt reacted and fired a shot that ricocheted off the limestone. The bang echoed off the chamber’s tight confines and hurt her ears.

  “Don’t move again,” he ordered.

  Simone froze.

  “We were childless,” he said, his eyes watering. “She aborted the baby at twenty weeks.”

  She caught the shadow of sorrow in his face and began to understand what was happening here.


  A clash of culture and religion.

  “She decided, on her own, to do that,” he added. “For her, bringing a child into this world would be cruel. Her insane God of Good would never want that.”

  His anger was growing with every word.

  “She promised me she would not do any such thing. She told me that she wanted the child. But she lied.”

  “It was my right. My choice,” Simone spit out. “Not yours. Mine alone.”

  He fired another shot her way that found more rock.

  “No. It was not your choice. It was our choice. One you denied me.”

  “Why not have another?” she asked Beláncourt. “You annulled the marriage. Remarry.”

  “Unfortunately,” he said, his voice barely a whisper, “after the marriage ended, I contracted chicken pox. A terrible case, late in life. I almost died. But I was rendered sterile by the experience.”

  “Your punishment,” Simone said. “For the evil you inflicted on me. The evil of carrying a child. Because I called and you did not answer. I spoke and you did not hear, and you did evil in my eyes, and you have chosen the things that displease me.”

  “Shut up,” he yelled. “I hate your scriptures. I hate your religion. I. Hate. You.”

  Simone stood with The Truth in her hand.

  Its presence gave her strength.

  She noticed a few of the words on the top page, the writing in Occitan decipherable. From this comes the basis for our service to God, in that we may fulfill His works, or rather, that God may consummate through us that which He proposes and wishes to be done.

  Another message?

  But what was it He wished done?

  Beláncourt kept his attention on both women.

  Simone was twenty meters away, across what appeared to be a shallow pond of water bulging from a stream that pierced the chamber. Vitt was much closer, a few meters to his left, in front of him.

  Neither woman carried a weapon.

  Both had flashlights.

  He stepped a little farther into the chamber, the feeling of gnawing emptiness that he’d grown accustomed to there, in his stomach.

  Fueling him.

  “My dear ex-wife,” he said with contempt in his voice, “decided that she wanted to be Cathar. The one true religion, she called it. She made that choice on her own and I went along. I did not interfere, recognizing that her beliefs were heartfelt and personal. Of course, I considered the whole thing a dead belief. Gone. Its concepts a thing of the past. But I was wrong.”

  “Yes, you were,” Simone said. “We are far from dead. There are believers everywhere. Men and women who want to lead good lives. Who want to achieve everlasting happiness. Who have no need for a pope or bishops. I watch over them.”

  He looked at Vitt. “She’s their Perfecti. Their priest. Their special one. That all happened after we split. She became much more fanatical.”

  “You watched her?” Vitt asked.

  He nodded.

  “Strange thing for a man to do who hates his ex-wife,” Vitt said.

  “Not at all. I’ve simply been waiting for this moment. True, I could have denied her many petty things. Some tiny disappointments.” He shook his head. “But that would not have been as satisfying. I knew she was after the great Truth. I knew that a Book of Hours with a rose design on the cover could lead the way. So I waited for this moment, ready to deny what is most important to her.”

  “It won’t replace that child,” Vitt said.

  Simone’s limbs trembled with rage.

  “You never understood a thing,” she called out. “You thought that bringing a child into this world was something of joy. Of happiness. It’s not. It’s cruel to bring a child into this physical existence. Cruel to subject him or her to the evils that Satan tempts us with in this world. The joy only comes from leaving this hell. I saved our child that pain. He or she is now with the God of Good.”

  “You sucked our fetus from your womb,” he said. “It was twenty weeks old. Defined. A person. Alive. You slaughtered a living being. You played God and decided who would live and die. You imposed your idiocy on both me and that unborn child.”

  His voice cracked and she heard the same emotion that had passed between them years ago when she told him how the pregnancy had ended.

  He’d thought it a miscarriage.

  But she told him the truth.

  “I will have those pages,” he said. “Or by God I. Will. Kill. You.”

  Cassiopeia was becoming concerned.

  The situation was escalating out of control. A lot had passed between these two, and what should have been a private matter for them to resolve had now become a war in which she found herself, literally, right in the middle, a hostile face on either side, both conveying silent menace.

  One armed.

  The other not.

  She should have brought a gun, but there’d been no indication of that level of trouble. And traveling around France with a loaded, concealed weapon was anything but legal. Not that laws necessarily were an issue for her. They certainly weren’t for Beláncourt.

  “Do you need that gun?” she asked, staying calm. “We’re not armed. There’s no threat here, except from you.”

  “The threat level depends on Simone’s cooperation.”

  She was afraid of that.

  Simone stared down at the backpack on the ground, a meter or so from the water’s edge.

  She’d come prepared.

  Her gun lay inside.

  After the encounter in the cathedral she knew that Roland was not going to back away. He’d made his intentions clear, which was exactly why she’d risked the personal encounter inside the church. It was important she knew exactly what she was facing. And the visit had confirmed that her ex-husband was on the offensive. She’d known him for over twenty years. He’d not become a billionaire by being timid. He knew how to get what he wanted. Their last encounter, just before the annulment was granted, had been anything but amicable. His last words to her emphatic. Someday, somehow, you will pay for what you did.

  But his words rang hollow then and now.

  She was not afraid to die. Not in the least. But she was afraid to fail, and it was important that she escape this underground vault and bring The Truth back into the light.

  Go with God, although He knew fully and foresaw from eternity the fate of all His angels. His wisdom and providence did not make His angels become demons. They became demons and things of evil by their own will, because they did not wish to remain holy and humble before their Lord. They wickedly puffed themselves up in pride against Him.

  So true.

  Now she knew what had to be done.

  Beláncourt aimed his gun toward Simone. “Come over here and bring those pages.”

  His ex-wife did not obey.

  Nothing new there.

  Their marriage had battered itself to a standstill with plenty of cruel, blunt words. Toward the end they’d little more than shared space, the cursory enjoyment of each other fading to nothing. He knew of wives who wore away their husbands. Others who made a cockold—jealous, suspicious, agonized fools whose work suffered and reputations declined. Simone had gone to the farthest extreme and killed their baby.

  Bad marriages, though, were seldom fatal.

  Yet this was something altogether different.

  A choking urgency enveloped him, sending electric spasms to his muscles and brain, urging action. He readjusted the gun’s aim at Cassiopeia Vitt. “How about I shoot her first? Would you like that, Simone? Does your precious Truth sanction you allowing someone else to die for your beliefs? Oh, I forgot. It actually does, since you killed our child. But this woman is not a child. Not a Cathar.”

  “You would kill her?” Simone asked.

  “With no hesitation.”

  Cassiopeia could not decide if Beláncourt was bluffing. Unfortunately, there was little she could do about any of it since she was totally exposed and unarmed. Neither was a good situation. So—


  Be patient.

  That’s what Cotton would say.

  Wait for your moment.

  Simone steeled herself.

  For one who knows fully all things that shall come to pass is powerless, in so far as He’s self-consistent to do anything except that which He himself has known from eternity that He shall do.

  She was meant to resurrect that which had been lost. Why else had the God of Good sent her along the path she’d taken the past decade? It all made sense. Especially now, with The Truth in hand. Only two things stood in her way.

  Time to deal with the first.

  “All right, Roland. I’m coming over.”

  She bent down to get her pack.

  “Leave it,” he called out.

  “I’m placing these pages inside. I don’t want anything to happen to them. If you don’t like that, shoot me.”

  He hesitated, then said, “Okay. But slowly.”

  She opened the flap and slid the thick bundle in, hoping not to cause them any damage. Vellum was tough, but not invincible. The bundle projected from the top, not fully able to go inside. She switched off her light and set it inside the pack. Then she lifted the backpack and cradled it across her chest with both arms, her right hand near the open top.

  The weight of defeat settled on her shoulders like a cloak.

  But she shook it off.

  Roland watched her from the shadows, visible in the penumbra of Vitt’s flashlight. She took one step, then slipped her hand into the pack, gripped the gun, and fired across the water.

  Cassiopeia saw the gun and heard the shot at the same instant. There was no time to avoid any of the consequences and she heard the bullet thud into Beláncourt’s flesh.

  He slumped over.

  Simone fired again.

  Beláncourt collapsed and smacked the floor hard, his gun clattering away. Cassiopeia realized her light was providing the target, so she extinguished the beam, plunging the chamber into darkness and blotting everything from sight.