Templar Scrolls: a Nia Rivers Adventure (Nia Rivers Adventures Book 3)

by Jasmine Walt

  “That’s actually where we’re headed,” I said, turning my attention back to Tres and the ride behind him. “We were on our way to the mosque. Do you think you could give us a lift?”

  Half an hour later, we all piled into the tank and took off at a breakneck speed. The sounds of gunshots and explosions were muffled, but I felt the reverberations inside the metal cage.

  I sat across from Tres. His long legs stretched out across the aisle. With each bump in the road, the booted toe of his shoe moved closer to mine.

  “So, this is your idea of a date?” I spoke through the microphone of a headset. The inside of a tank was anything but silent. Even sitting next to someone, as we were, we still had to shout to be heard.

  “No.” He shook his head. “This isn’t a date. It’s a rescue mission. There will be no weapons present the next time I come to court you.”

  He cocked his head and studied me. I felt heat at each juncture where his sharp gaze rested momentarily.

  “Unless...?” he hedged.

  I swatted at him. He chuckled. Instead of evading my jab, which he could’ve done easily, he caught my hand in his and held it.

  Another bump sent his boot right up to the tip of mine. The tank swerved and the tops of our knees knocked together.

  “Well,” I said as he rubbed his thumb on the inside of my index finger, “this isn’t so bad, as third dates go.”

  “This isn’t our third date.”

  “No, I suppose not. You said I had you on your knees shortly after our original first date.”

  Another bump and my butt was at the edge of my seat. His face loomed over mine. And then not one, but a chorus of people cleared their throats.

  Tres looked left. I looked right. We’d forgotten that we weren’t alone in the tank. We also weren’t the only individuals wearing headphones. Everyone had them on so that we could communicate with each other—the knights, the soldiers, Loren, and Gwin. But it appeared Tres and I had taken over the airwaves with our flirting.

  He let my fingers go reluctantly and leaned back against the interior of the tank. But he didn’t remove his booted foot away from mine.

  “So, what are you translating here in Mosul?” asked Tres.

  “What?”

  “You said that’s what he needed you for.” Tres cocked his head toward Arthur, who lounged back in his seat.

  “She translated the documents for me already.” Arthur looked relaxed, but tension was in his body, as we were cooped up in a little metal box and rolling through a war zone. “She begged to tag along into a war zone. Now, I realize why.”

  Tres turned to glare at the Celtic king. A smug smile crossed Arthur’s face. I had known that Arthur and Tres didn’t get along. But I’d known that before Tres and I started getting along. So this pissing contest couldn’t be about me.

  Arthur had no real interest in me. He was trying to rile up Tres. But why?

  “Oh, I know why,” said Tres. “She was obviously trying to get away from you and your repressive regime. Like most of the women under your care.”

  Percival and Geraint sat on either side of Arthur. At the same moment, both men reached out a hand to hold Arthur in his seat.

  “Wow, tension much?” said Loren, who sat beside Gwin.

  “Mr. Mohandis dallied with a witch about a hundred years ago,” Gwin said.

  I turned to look at Tres.

  “I returned her in better condition than when she left.” Tres turned up his palms in a placating fashion. “We both have pasts, Nia.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t upset that he’d been with another person. I had his full attention right now. But Arthur clearly hadn’t forgotten the dalliance.

  The tank came to a jolting stop, which sent me out of my seat and into Tres’s arms. I was less than an inch from his lips. I only needed to tilt my head and I’d brush his bottom lip.

  That bottom lip curved up into a wicked grin. His large hands came to my sides. I felt the heat of his palms through my layers of clothing, and I gasped. But instead of pulling me closer, he brought me up with him as he stood in a crouch. He set me on my own two feet and then stepped back, sweeping his hand before him to allow me to exit the tank first.

  It took my legs a moment to work, as my brain was malfunctioning. That man continually kept me on my toes. I’d need to up my game if I were to continue to tussle with him.

  Outside the tank, it was eerily quiet after the continuous pecking of bullets and shattering of explosions. When we were all assembled out of the tank, we looked at the building before us. Or what was once a building.

  The Mosque of Yunus lay in rubble. It had so for many years, destroyed by ISIS as they rampaged across the country to erase history. We looked around at one another in silence, like we were mourning.

  “What exactly were you looking for here?” asked Tres.

  “We were looking for—”

  But Arthur silenced me with a look.

  “He’s an architect,” I said. “He could help.”

  “I told you before,” said Arthur, “we’ve already looked here. We did not find what we sought.”

  “Did you check beneath the surface?” I asked. I learned to look deeper when it came to ancient temples of worship. There was often another layer or two just beneath the surface. “There may have been more layers to the mosque. If so, Tres is the perfect person to help us find it.”

  “There’s a lot of energy here,” said Gwin. “I can feel it coursing through my veins. I think it’s here.”

  I turned back to Tres. “Do you know anything about this building’s structure?”

  “I didn’t build it myself,” Tres said. “But I am familiar with its design. The mosque was built on top of a Christian church that, in turn, had been built on top of two other mounds.”

  “So at least two other layers? Can you take us down to the lower levels?” I asked.

  We left the soldiers to keep watch and began our descent beneath the rubble. We picked over fragments of walls and passageways until Tres found a doorway that led down a narrow stair. On the third level, we entered what appeared to be a shrine.

  Darkness consumed us until the knights took out those neat glowing lights. The air thinned, but that wasn’t too much of a problem with my immortality and the others’ magic. I looked over at Loren. She seemed to be doing just fine. Whatever little magic was in her bones was protecting her from the harsh subterranean climate.

  Out before us, it looked like a maze of rooms. I was about to suggest that we split up when Gwin took the lead. Both Arthur and Lance rushed to either side of her, but neither man stopped her.

  As she walked ahead of us, I caught her profile. The dazed look on her face reminded me of Igraine during one of her visions. I had no clue that, in addition to her ability to heal and cast protection spells, Gwin was a seer.

  She led us to a room at the far end of the maze-like hall. The room was bare. There were the remains of what looked to be pews.

  Gwin went to a bare wall at the front of the room. She placed her hands on the wall and then rested her cheek against it. When she turned her unfocused gaze to Arthur, I noted he had the same hazy look.

  “It’s in there,” said Gwin.

  “I know,” Arthur said. “I feel it too.”

  I looked around to see that all the knights had a similar unfocused cast to their eyes. They drew their swords and shields. Together, they rushed the wall.

  There was a great crash as the large men and their magic shields impacted the wall. Cracks appeared on the wall. The knights backed up, preparing to do it again.

  “I’m not so sure I’d advise that,” said Tres. “I don’t know if that’s a load-bearing wall.”

  But the knights didn’t heed his advice. They rushed again, and the wall came crashing down around them. When the dust cleared, we saw another passageway with a closed door.

  Arthur rubbed at his shoulder. He holstered his weapons and then reached out to open the door. There was a weird glow c
oming from the door as though a light was on inside.

  One by one, the knights filed in. I was anxious to get my turn inside to see what that light was all about. Finally, the last knight went in, and I rushed across the threshold. The first thing I saw when I came into the room was a spear sitting against the inside of the doorway.

  “Is that the Spear of Destiny?” Loren asked.

  “It can’t be.” I approached the spear. But at the last minute, Lance caught my hand.

  “Don’t touch that,” he said.

  “You don’t really believe it’s the spear?” I said.

  He didn’t answer. I gave the object another glance. It looked like a simple wooden stick and a spearhead. There were no adornments. Nothing on it said “here lies the Spear of Destiny, which did pierce the flesh of Jesus.”

  When Lance turned his back, I reached out like a curious child and touched the tip. When the blade nicked me, I pulled my hand away in pain. There was blood at the tip of my finger. It should not have broken my skin so easily. I’d been around Tres for less than an hour. The effects of the allergy should not be in play yet. But not only did I bleed, I hurt.

  “I said don’t touch.” Lance shook his head. “Magic is dangerous if you’re not a witch.”

  “It’s magic?” I asked.

  “It’s an object of worship that has spent hundreds of years on a ley line.”

  “It’s a magical wound,” Gwin said. “It won’t heal on its own. Here, let me—”

  But I walked past her into the room, my mouth agape as my finger continued to bleed. The light was coming from a casket in the center of the room. But I walked past those more interested in the treasures all around.

  On the walls were depictions of the last supper of Christ that had to be hundreds, maybe even over a thousand, years old. There was furniture in the corners. Baskets open with clothing, tattered over time. Jewelry lay on tables and inside open chests. It looked like the inside of an Egyptian royal’s tomb. Then I remembered that Joseph of Arimathea had been an Egyptian.

  Was this his tomb?

  Lined up against the wall were a series of cups. I made my way over to them, bending down to study them to try to discern which could be the Grail. I expected Arthur to displace me at any moment, but he didn’t come near. In fact, I didn’t see him looming anywhere near me.

  I stood up and noticed for the first time that the casket, from where the room got its light source, was actually a sarcophagus. But in the tomb, there was no mummy. There was no man. I gasped at the sight of the body in the tomb.

  The items in this room could easily be older than five hundred years, likely closer to one or two thousand. Even in this underground tomb, the wear of age had made a visible effect. But the woman in the casket looked as though she were only sleeping.

  The woman was old, but she’d aged well. Her salt-and-pepper hair was spread out before her. Her ruby lips didn’t part in a sigh, but they looked as though she would open them at any moment with a delicate yawn. Her hands were crossed at her chest, the nails still neatly trimmed. She looked as though she’d just lain down for an afternoon nap. But for centuries upon centuries.

  “Who is she?” I asked, but was met with silence.

  Every knight in the room was on his knee, bowing before the woman. Even Gwin was prostrate.

  Arthur straightened and approached the reposing woman as though fearful he’d awaken her from her sleep. “This is Joseph’s wife, Mary de Marmore. More commonly known as Mary Magdalene.”

  My eyes widened as I took in the woman again. I had met her. But that was over two thousand years ago. She’d been a devout follower of Jesus at the time. She’d also been his family by marriage.

  “She was a witch,” said Gwin. “A powerful one. Who has been laid to rest on a ley line. The magic doesn’t die, remember? It lives on until it’s returned to the source.”

  “She is the Grail,” I said.

  It all made sense now. Hugues de Payins had written the letter to his father, Joseph. History had told that after the death of Christ, one of his followers had taken Mary Magdalene to Europe. She and her family eventually settled in France. That follower of Jesus had been his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph was the husband of Mary Magdalene.

  Part of me wanted to jump for joy at such a find. The other part kept calculating the meaning of a two-thousand-year-old witch lying in a pool of supernatural light. That light wasn’t made of electricity or phosphorous. It was pure magic.

  “You’re going to burn her?” I asked.

  “We have to,” Gwin said. “If we don’t, her magic could fall into the wrong hands.”

  “Why didn’t her husband do it?” I asked.

  “Joseph was Egyptian,” said Arthur. “Neither he nor Lady Mary practiced the ritual of burning. And he loved my great-grandmother too much to see her body harmed in any way. So he hid her away from us.”

  “Your great-grandmother?” I asked.

  “Mary Magdalene de Marmor’s daughter, my grandfather’s wife, was called Mara. History called her Marlin or Merlin.”

  My head was spinning. Arthur was the descendant of Mary Magdalene and the uncle of the Virgin Mary, Joseph of Arimethea. That was why Queen Mara had always looked so familiar to me. I’d known her family. It was too much to take in.

  “She’s the chalice,” I said. “Her body is the Holy Grail. And the two angels in the poem? They were her children.” Lady Merida and Joseph de Paganis, better known to history as Hugues de Payens.

  Arthur nodded. “For centuries, Joseph and Lady Mary helped my family in the crusade to protect magical kind. But their son was born without magic, and he resented it. He gave rise to our greatest enemies, the Knights Templar.”

  “And now we have to burn her body before the Templars find her,” said Lance.

  “Resentment, I think, is too strong a word,” came a voice from the entryway. “Perhaps our dear cousin was only trying to even the mortal odds in an unfair magical world.”

  21

  The metallic clanging and air-splitting whoosh of swords being raised filled the air. But as soon as they were raised, they were lowered like dead weight when the knights were confronted with the man standing in the entryway.

  Merlin stood before us in robes. He’d been a tall, lanky giant as a youth. His cheeks had always been gaunt, never quite filling out. His chest, even through his tunics, had always appeared sunken in when he stood next to his brother or another of the knights. He’d always looked to me like a child wearing a warrior’s body.

  Merlin looked ancient now. His dark hair was snow white. The facial hair that had never come for him in Camelot now extended down his chest as a downy beard of wisps. He only needed the pointy cap to complete the look of the Disney cartoon character that bore his name. Merlin was older than every knight present, and now he looked like a seventy-year-old man. The quarter-century that he’d been away from his homeland and off the ley line had not been kind to him.

  “Merlin?”

  I heard Gwin’s voice, but I didn’t see her. Lance had her blocked behind his large body. His arms stretched back, not allowing her to pass. He was also the only knight who still had his sword raised, ready to attack.

  Merlin’s dark eyes paid his wife no heed. His gaze was fastened on the body in the sarcophagus. “She’s here.”

  His voice was paper-thin. It didn’t croak and creek like an old man’s. His voice had always been soft.

  “I had begun to doubt I would ever find her,” he continued as he slow-marched into the room. His body moved as though it too were weighed down by the hands of time. “I’d searched this temple before and felt her presence, but I couldn’t find her. Not until you led her to me, my dear.”

  It was clear that he spoke to Gwin, but still he didn’t take his eyes off Lady Mary’s reposed body.

  “Even now, you’re still taking care of me. With Lady Mary’s magic inside of me, I will have all the strength I will ever need.”

  Merlin took
another step. Before he could reach for the casket, Arthur stepped between its contents and his brother, sword raised, face set in a grim line.

  Merlin’s gaze slowly focused on his younger brother. The steel of the sword glinted in his dark eyes. “You would kill your own brother?”

  “It looks as though you’ve already done that,” said Arthur. “I don’t see my blood. I see a madman, a murderer. You’ve taken the lives of those we’re all sworn to protect.”

  Merlin shook his head. The puffs of his hair looked like clouds cast around his head. “I did what was necessary to survive, as we have always done. As you and our father and his father before him taught us. We put the good of the people ahead of ourselves.”

  Arthur’s jaw worked at having his words thrown back in his face, but so out of context. “You’ve killed your own kind, sucked the life out of them in your quest to save your own life. That is not chivalry. That is cowardice.”

  “I didn’t take their lives,” said Merlin. “I brought them to glory, baptized them under the Word of our Lord. I told you, I heard the voice of God. He sent me one of his messengers. He said to surrender. That God is the One and I am his prophet. Those witches didn’t submit to the Word, and their lives became forfeit.”

  “No.” Gwin’s voice was part sob, part plea. “This isn’t who you are. You have a good soul.”

  Merlin looked over at her for the first time. “A good soul? But a weak body. Not a full man, was it?”

  “I never said that,” Gwin cried, her face contorted in a mix of horror, guilt, and sorrow.

  “You didn’t have to.” Merlin’s eyes latched onto Lance, who still shielded Gwin with his large body. “You gave me your strength, my life. It was you who taught me to see the light, the way.”

  “I never hurt you and you never hurt me,” insisted Gwin. “You don’t have to hurt anyone now. Not anymore. Let me help you. Like I used to. I have plenty to give.”