The Spirit Well (Bright Empires)

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  For indeed, dear Engelbert could not have been any more gallant a defender if he had worn a suit of shining armour and carried her colours into the joust on the back of a galloping steed. Never had she known anyone who so selflessly and consistently took her part and put her welfare and interests first.

  Etzel did all that and more, and Mina had no doubt that when the quest for the Skin Map was finished, she would happily settle down to life in the Grand Imperial with him. Indeed, the more she thought about it, the more certain she was that she wanted nothing else.

  Just now, however, she had other duties and entanglements that he could not share. First on the list was to elude Burleigh. Then she could devote herself entirely to discovering what had happened to Kit. The first task was simple and easily accomplished, thanks to Haven’s timely warning. For the second chore, she would need help. Having come to the end of her own expertise, she determined it was time to go back to the one who had helped her find Kit the first time: Brother Lazarus.

  With any luck at all, she might still be able to stay a step or two ahead of Burleigh and his brute squad. The chief problem, among many, was the risk of exposure. Knowing how Burleigh’s new device worked, she now realised just how vulnerable she would be when ley travelling. If the treacherous earl ever took an interest in her specifically, the result could well be catastrophic.

  Once the decision was made, Wilhelmina wasted no time in putting her plan into action. She bade Etzel farewell, promising to hurry back as soon as humanly possible, and then set off. The ley she needed was half a day’s journey from Prague, and from previous experience Mina knew it to be particularly time-sensitive—that is, offering only a very narrow window of activity twice each day, a few minutes either side of sunrise and sunset. Miss either opportunity, and the ley traveller would have to wait until next time. This was not unusual; many ley lines and portals operated in a similar fashion, she had found. Some were more lenient and forgiving, some less so. Why? Wilhelmina had no clue.

  With the hostler near the city gates she arranged for a carriage and driver to take her to her destination: an empty stretch of countryside a kilometre or so north of the tiny farming village of Podbrdy. Her plan was to disembark outside the settlement and walk to the ley unobserved, if possible. Two further jumps would put her in the southern Pyrenees within a stone’s throw of her destination. Once there she would assume the guise of a nun on pilgrimage and seek out her mentor. In accordance with his wishes and her most solemn and sacred vow—he had made her swear on a hand-copied Bible not to reveal either his identity or whereabouts to another living soul—she had never breathed a word of Brother Lazarus’ existence to anyone. The cautious monk was, in effect, her very secret weapon. A quaint arrangement, but it suited them both.

  Wilhelmina dozed through much of the coach ride to the village so that she would be well rested for the next leaps in her journey. In the end, she need not have bothered because she arrived too late and the ley was dormant; she had to wait until sunrise. She begged a bed for the night in the barn of a nearby farmer and spent a pleasant, if odorous, evening with two cows, four ducks, and a black-spotted pig.

  Just before sunrise she returned to the ley and made the leap; the next two were accomplished without incident and, pausing before the last jump, she took refreshment at a small café on the Via Bassomondo, the dusty road winding down the gently sloping hillside to the abbey of Sant’Antimo. She was, she thought, somewhere in the last century—1929, perhaps? Wilhelmina couldn’t tell. Her Italian was strictly confined to Buongiorno, Signor Rinaldi! Un cappuccino e una brioche, per favore.

  She drank her coffee and ate her pastry, making comparisons with her own brew and baking, paid the bill from her little stash of coins obtained on her various travels, and then walked on to the next ley, which ran through the valley outside the abbey. This part of the journey was always her favourite, and Mina often lingered a little while to enjoy the sublime view of the broad olive-groved and cypress-lined valley. Tradition had it that Emperor Charlemagne had been a major benefactor of the monastery in earlier days, and often used it as a convenient stopping-off place on his various journeys from Rome to his palace at Aachen.

  Sometimes, when she had time to spare, she paused to take in the abbey church itself, a handsome Romanesque structure in rough white limestone with beautiful carvings inside and out. The location had been chosen because, like so many sites that now hosted churches of various kinds, it had been a holy place long before the monastery had been contemplated. That it remained a pilgrimage destination worked to Wilhelmina’s favour in that the monks were used to strangers in their midst and welcomed them as best they could. Thus Wilhelmina blended in with the general comings and goings of the place, and her odd appearances and disappearances went unnoticed and unremarked. More importantly, however, it was at Sant’Antimo that she had first learned of the man to whom she owed much of her acumen and skill in ley travel.

  This is the story of how she first came to meet Brother Lazarus and travel to his world:

  Wilhelmina’s experiments with Burleigh’s first device had provided her with a ready means of recognising active ley lines as well as guiding her to them. She had made a number of test jumps—cautious to the point of timidity at first, but with growing confidence as she gained experience—beginning with a series of single jumps, then a few doubles, before progressing to what were, for her, the very daring triple jumps. In each of these experiments she noted the place and time of the ley activity and memorised the destinations. On one of those early triple jumps she had landed in the pleasant Italian valley near Montalcino, on a narrow dirt road that passed a grand old church and monastery. The date—local time—was 27 May, 1972.

  Surrounded by ancient cypress trees, well-tended fields, and a little pasture for sheep, the place seemed to speak to her; she felt drawn to it and decided to indulge herself with a little sightseeing. Passing through the handsomely carved archway, she entered the quiet sanctuary; the cool air was heavy with the scent of frankincense. From somewhere near the altar at the front of the high-ceilinged chancel, a small bell chimed. There were a few other visitors walking the aisles, quietly, thoughtfully, and in spite of her old-fashioned clothes, Wilhelmina blended right in. As she made her first circuit of the church, she came upon a large handpainted sign with a diagram of the floor plan. Seeing the explanation was in English as well as French and Italian, she paused to read it and discovered that, according to a series of measurements carried out some years earlier, no fewer than seven separate lines of electromagnetic force met at a point directly beneath the church’s altar. These force fields were not leys; at least, not like any Wilhelmina had previously encountered. They were not straight, and culminated at a single point—unlike normal ley lines; nor was that term used in the fragmented English translation provided on the sign by the mapmaker. Were these lines of force something similar? Or something else entirely?

  Mina, determined to find out all she could of these mysterious lines of telluric energy flowing beneath the church, immediately hailed one of the monks going about his business. “Scusi, padre. Parla Inglese”

  “Sì, signora, a leetle.”

  Pointing to the sign showing the map of the curious lines, she said, “This priest”—she tapped the neatly lettered name at the bottom of the sign—“Fra Giambattista Becarria?”

  “Fra Giambattista, si,” agreed the monk.

  “Is he here? May I speak to him? It may be important.”

  “No, signora, is not possible. Fra Giambattista, he no longer with us.”

  Mina frowned. “He is dead, you mean?”

  “Si. Many years now.”

  “May I see his grave?”

  “Alas, signora. Is at Abbazia di Montserrat, I think”

  “Montserrat? Is that far?”

  “Si, signora. Is in Spagna.”

  Wilhelmina thanked the priest for the information and continued her exploration of Sant’Antimo. By the time she reached the altar rai
l she was in the grip of a conviction as potent as it was absurd: the unanswerable certainty that the knowledge she so desperately needed would be found at a place that thirty seconds ago she had never even heard of. Moreover, this conviction entailed an insistence of such urgency that she plopped down in the front pew and stared at the light streaming in through the high, narrow windows behind the stunningly lifelike crucifix, her mind reeling with the single thought that she must drop everything and get herself to the abbey at Montserrat by the fastest means possible.

  At the time, her ley mapping skills did not yet extend to the Spanish peninsula, and she wanted to make no mistakes, so she decided to travel by train. In a typically canny move, Wilhelmina decided that if she was to visit a Spanish abbey, she would present herself as a German nun. In Montalcino, she purchased a plain skirt and blouse, and with the addition of a gift-shop cross of olive wood and a well-arranged dovegrey headscarf, she was a passable sister—if of the modern variety.

  Upon arrival in Barcelona, she found a convent and arranged to join a group of visiting French nuns on pilgrimage to the Abadia de Santa Maria, which was located high in the jagged mountain range northeast of the city. It was a three-day trek on foot, but Wilhelmina enjoyed the fresh air and easy company of the nuns, who sang as they went and stopped in every village chapel and shrine along the way to pray and prepare for their sojourn at the abbey.

  The little party finally arrived late in the afternoon of the third day. They entered the narrow gorge into which the abbey and its various buildings had been painstakingly shoehorned. The soaring peaks of the surrounding mountains rose sheer on every side save one, which gave onto a shimmering vista stretching from the sloping foothills all the way to the coast. As the covey of nuns stood marvelling at the magnificence of the abbey and its situation, the bell for vespers rang, so they followed the general flow of monks and visitors up the steep incline to the church.

  At the top of the esplanade rose ranks of steps that terminated in a courtyard, the end of which opened to a gateway. Beyond the gates was a handsome atrium lined with statues of apostles and saints and paved with inlaid marble of many colours that marked out a geometric swirl of intersecting lines, at the centre of which was a circular mosaic representing the four rivers flowing out of Eden. The courtyard thronged with visitors behaving in a most peculiar way. They stood in a long line snaking back into the courtyard and, one at a time, each waiting patiently for the other, they took it in turn to step forward and stand in the central disc of the mosaic. Then they prayed—some in the classic attitude with hands folded and heads bowed, but many in apparent wild abandon with arms outstretched and faces turned to the clear blue sky above.

  The faithful would stand like this for a time before moving off to join the general population making their way into the sanctuary. This curious activity was not lost on Wilhelmina. How very odd, she thought. Clearly, there was something going on here, and she took it as a sign that vindicated her own decision to come.

  She followed the others as they moved slowly towards the entrance and, upon approaching the centre of the mosaic circle, experienced the subtle but unmistakable frisson of pent energy that she always felt in the presence of an active ley. It was there, marked out in stone in the middle of the atrium where, apparently, pilgrims in their hundreds and thousands also perceived the latent energy in some way.

  Once in the chapel, she sat through the service, listening to the ethereal voices of the choir and wondering how to make sense of it all. The end of the service found her in a pensive mood of rapt contemplation; for overarching all other considerations was a feeling of peace and, if not contentment, then at least a sense of rightness—she felt that all was as it should be.

  She took a light supper in the convent refectory with sisters from a dozen different nations and was given a cot in the dormitory. Wilhelmina slept well and awoke at the sunrise bell to attend prayers with them. As soon as the service was finished, she set off to find the grave of Fra Giambattista and to learn more about him if she could. She waited until most of the congregation had left, then approached one of the monks who acted as usher and guide. “Por favor, habla inglés?”

  “Lo siento, hermana, no,” he said, shaking his head. He turned, then pointed across the spacious expanse of the sanctuary to a black-robed monk stacking blue service books.

  “Excuse me, brother,” she said, upon approaching him. “I am told you speak English.”

  The monk straightened, turned, and smiled when he saw her. “I have a little. How can I help you?”

  “I am looking for the grave of a former priest by the name of Giambattista Beccaria,” Wilhelmina replied, and went on to explain how she had been directed to the abbey to find it. She watched a thoughtful frown form and deepen on the priest’s smooth-shaven face.

  “I am sorry, sister,” he replied at length. “I have never heard that name. Are you certain he is buried here?”

  “That is what I have been given to understand. He was a former astronomer here—at least, that is what I was told.”

  “Ah! Then you must go to Brother Lazarus. He is astronomer now. If anyone knows about this, he will.”

  Wilhelmina thanked him for his help and asked where she might find this brother. The monk, who had resumed stacking books, shrugged. “At the observatory, where else?”

  She hurried off and, after asking directions, found a signboard painted with a map of the extensive abbey grounds. The observatory was clearly marked. According to the sign it was at the top of one of the peaks soaring above the abbey; all she had to do was climb the winding path leading to the summit. This she did and discovered a small tower with a bulbous top perched on a pinnacle of stone. An iron rail enclosed a circular walkway around the base of the building, and a simple handrail of knotted rope assisted the ascent up a steep flight of narrow stairs leading to the door.

  There appeared to be no one around, but as she started up the stairs she heard the sound of someone humming—low and rhythmically, if not exactly melodically. Mina could not see who was making this sound, but as she mounted to the top step and started around the base of the tower she found a monk in the black robes of the Benedictines down on his knees, surrounded by gardening tools—a small hand trowel, a rake, a pruning knife, an assortment of clay pots, and a sheaf of cuttings. The gardener was clutching a double handful of dirt and humming tunelessly while he worked. As she watched, he placed the dirt in a clay pot and pressed it firmly around a geranium cutting. A canvas bag of soil stood open beside him.

  Wilhelmina cleared her throat. “Excuse me, please,” she said, announcing her presence. “Hello?”

  The priest gave such a start that Wilhelmina was ashamed of startling him. “Oh, I am sorry,” she apologised. “I did not mean to frighten you.”

  The gardener’s hand described a strange gesture around his head, and he whipped something out of sight in a fold of his robe. Then, steadying himself, he rose and turned to meet his visitor. “Que?” he said, rubbing dirt from his hands. “Buenos días, hermana.”

  “Sorry, no habla español,” she replied. Then, out of force of habit, she said, “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

  “Ja, tu ich.” His smile widened. A small man, with short snowwhite hair and quick, dark eyes. His face was nicely browned by the sun, his hands made strong by the long hours he spent gardening. In all, he reminded Wilhelmina of one of the Seven Dwarfs. “Guten Morgen, Schwester,” he said in a rich, almost operatic baritone—the voice of a much larger man.

  “Good morning, brother,” she answered in the sturdy German of Old Prague, then offered him a little bow she had seen the other nuns make when addressing a priest of the order. “I am looking for the one they call Brother Lazarus.”

  “Then God smiles upon you, sister.” He bent to brush dirt from the knees of his robe. He straightened again, the top of his head coming only to Mina’s shoulder. “You have found him.”

  “You are Brother Lazarus?” she asked, unable to keep the note of
incredulity out of her voice. “The astronomer?”

  He laughed, and Wilhelmina’s face went red with embarrassment. “Why?” he asked. “Is that difficult to believe?”

  “Oh, I am sorry,” Mina said quickly. “I took you for a gardener,” she explained, indicating the assembled tools and pots.

  He looked where she was pointing. “Yes, well”—he gave a little shrug—“such is a good grounding for stargazing.” He reached out a thickly muscled hand and placed it gently on her sleeve. “An astronomer can only practise his craft at night. What is he to do with the rest of his time?”

  “Forgive me, brother. I meant no disrespect.”

  He swatted away the apology with an impatient flick of his hand. “Now that you have found Brother Lazarus, what do you want with him?”

  “I am searching for the burial place of one of your colleagues, a monk of this order. I have been told that he was once the astronomer here and that his grave is nearby. Can you tell me where it is?”

  “Perhaps, yes,” he replied, turning to resume his work. “If you will tell me his name, I can tell you if he is buried at the abbey.”

  “His name is Fra Giambattista.”

  At the name, the monk stopped, straightened, and went very still. “Fra Giambattista Beccaria?” he asked without turning around.

  “Yes, that’s the one.”

  “I am sorry, sister,” he said, stooping once more to his tools. “Your search has come to nothing. His grave, if it exists, is not here—not at this abbey.” He made a show of beginning to work again. “Good day to you. And Godspeed.”

  Wilhelmina pursed her lips, alarmed at the swift change in the man’s demeanour. The mere mention of the name had brought about an abrupt and disagreeable transformation—the same as if he had slammed a door in her face.