by L. Todd Wood
The priest looked at him in a strange way. "Why yes," he said. "The visitors come here regularly. I assumed you were one of them?"
"Oh yes, I am," replied Rafe. "Thank you."
"There were many here this morning. I thought you had all arrived." The priest smiled, turned, and left. Rafe said nothing and pretended to comprehend what the priest was talking about.
When he was gone, Rafe turned and walked into the cave. There was a sign above the opening with letters in Greek that he did not understand. He wrote them on a notepad he had taken from the hotel. The cave was nondescript and was obviously ancient. There were etchings on the wall from centuries before. It had been the dwelling of many a monk through the ages. There was a small, wooden bed and a writing table, not much else. Rafe carefully looked over the carvings in the wall and could not make heads or tails of most of them. He wrote many of them down in his pad. He glanced up and saw across the room something that got his attention. Carved into the wall near a wooden floor platform, he saw a large trident. It was the same he had seen in Gibraltar, only this one fit, as this was a monastery of Vladimir the Great. Rafe walked over to the etching and examined it. He drew an exact replica on his notepad. Is this it? Is this what I am supposed to find? I don't understand. This is maddening. I wish Cecilia was here to help me with this. The thought of her saddened him.
Rafe checked the rest of the cave and found nothing. Am I at a dead end? He went back down the passageway and made his way to the exit of the monastery. The priest was closing the main doors as he left. He saw Rafe and looked surprised. "You are leaving?"
"Yes, thank you for your help."
"You are different than the rest," he said as he looked at Rafe warily. "Are you sure you are one of them?"
Rafe pulled the letter from the bishop out of his jacket pocket and handed it to the priest. "I was sent here to find information. You have been helpful. I thank you."
The priest read the letter and his eyes grew wide, then shrank with wariness. "We are retiring for the evening meal and meditation. I will close the doors behind you," he said coldly. Obviously aware he had been lied to.
"Thank you again," said Rafe, and he left, walked to the car, and drove back to the hotel, a feeling of frustration washing over him.
He was right about the food. He enjoyed a very nice Ukrainian meal. Rafe enjoyed the cuisine of Eastern Europe. It was very tasty and not as heavy as you found in Germany and elsewhere. There were lots of freshly cooked vegetables that were usually well spiced, cuts of sausage, and smoked fish. A couple shots from a bottle of local vodka helped wash everything down. After eating, Rafe felt full and relaxed, but still frustrated for information.
After the dishes had been cleared, Rafe spread the pages from the notepad out on the table in front of him. None of it made sense. Nothing stood out to him as significant. He had gone to his room and retrieved his laptop. Upon opening it, he pulled up his web browser and a translation page. He typed in the Cyrillic letters of the words άνοιγμα της πόρτας. It was not a Ukrainian saying and the software identified the language as Greek. He hit the translate button into English. A word appeared: Doorway. Rafe sat back in his chair. That does not help me! What am I supposed to understand? He slammed his fist down on the table. The waitress in the kitchen turned to look at him. He smiled and mouthed the word sorry in Ukrainian. She smiled back and returned to her conversation with the cook, occasionally staring back at him over her shoulder. She was young, cute and obviously interested in him. She probably thinks I'm rich and can be her ticket to the West, he thought.
Rafe stared at the computer screen. Doorway.
Later that night Rafe awoke, wide-eyed. His mind was racing, even though he had been sleeping. Something had awakened him. Was it a dream? I'm going to find out! He bolted upright in bed and dashed to get dressed, clumsily throwing on his clothes. He left the room in a hurry, slamming the door behind him. Soon he was in the car racing towards the monastery. The high beams on the rental car barely kept up with his speed as he negotiated the winding, barely-paved road. Doorway.
Chapter Eleven
The night was pitch-black when Rafe arrived at the gates of the monastery. The moon was nowhere to be found, like it had been plucked from the heavens. Even the stars were absent in the night sky. Rafe could barely see his hand in front of him. He parked the car and shut the door as quiet as possible. There was no noise to be heard. The monastery was deathly quiet. Then he began walking through the massive open gates that connected the fortress walls to the large, wooden entrance of the monastery complex, barely making his way in the low light. Eventually he reached the main building. Rafe touched the door, and it moved ever so slightly inward and released a soft creak. It was open. He pushed the door forward and walked in. Everything was dim and silent. No one was waiting for him. There was a damp, musky small that he hadn't noticed before during the daytime.
He switched on the small penlight he had taken from his backpack and began to retrace his steps he had taken earlier in the day with the priest. It was not difficult. The cavernous halls of the monastery caused the small beam to dissipate, but he easily found the passageways he was looking for. He still could not hear anything moving or anyone awake and soon was in the tunnel leading back into the depths of the mountain. He declined to light a candle as he passed through the small iron doorway. The bodies of the monks were even more ghastly as he shone the light from his flashlight over the coffins. Occasionally one of the relics had a long dead hand exposed, the skin still wrapped around the fingernails resembling a claw more than a human hand. Rafe shuddered in the darkness. The silence was deafening and somewhat eerie. The click of his boots on the stone floor echoed through the tunnel.
At last he reached the cave, having effectively negotiated the winding maze to his satisfaction. Everything was still dark. Rafe was somewhat spooked, thinking of all the monks who had subsisted here for centuries. If only these walls could talk, he thought to himself. Rafe looked for the words written above the archway, found them, and entered the cavern. Soon he was standing in front of the wooden platform where above the trident was etched into the wall. Doorway, he thought. Rafe reached down to the platform. It was similar to a wooden pallet, raising the floor above the ground about six inches and providing a more civilized look to the cave. He pulled upwards on the outer edge of the small stage-like structure. It moved. He pulled harder. It moved farther. Soon he had lifted the pallet and moved the flashlight to illuminate the surface underneath. There, embedded into the earth, was an iron door. Rafe pushed the wooden pallet upwards against the wall of the cave and bent down to examine the doorway he had just found. There were hinges on one side and a handle on the opposite side of the rectangular covering. He reached to the handle and pulled. The door started to move, and he opened it fully until it rested against the floor of the cave opposite the opening. I’m freaking crazy for doing this, he thought.
Then he heard something and froze.
He heard something all right. It sounded like voices. Rafe pointed the light into the tunnel below and stared. There was nothing but blackness with a wooden stairway leading into the abyss. Here we go. He started down the passageway. The stairway was really nothing more than a very old ladder, the wooden planks bending as he stepped down. Eventually he hit the bottom and stood on the dirt floor of a tunnel. He was completely alone and vulnerable. I’ve got to find Clare and Cecilia! Rafe again pointed the light in the direction of the noise and slowly moved forward, bending slightly so his head would not hit the ceiling.
He walked carefully for about ten minutes as the air grew cold around him. The noises were becoming ever so slightly louder. There was a rumbling under his feet, like a bass speaker pounding out a rhythmic beat. At last Rafe saw a flicker of light ahead and slowed down even further. The sounds were loud now. He switched off his flashlight so he would not be discovered, put his hand against the earth wall, and inched forward, straining to see what was ahead.
E
ventually he came to an opening in the tunnel; red and yellow light danced beyond the outlet like some monstrous aurora borealis. Rafe had a vague recollection that he had seen this type of light before, though not as concentrated. Then he realized it reminded him of the scene at the Circus Maximus. Carefully, he moved forward and looked into the space in front of him. He was looking into a cavernous underground room. There was a large rock platform fifty yards ahead of him. There was an altar built into the ledge, and a black, hooded figure stood on the ledge next to the altar. Several carcasses of dead animals were thrown to the side. The altar was stained with blood. Torches illuminated the cavern, and the light danced around the stalactites dripping in frozen time from the ceiling. It was a ghoulish scene. In front of Rafe, at least one hundred individuals in white hooded robes were standing in front of the altar on the cave floor. Drums were beating in the background. Rafe recoiled in horror.
Lying on the altar was a woman. She was wrapped partially in a white cloth, her abdomen exposed. She was young and beautiful. Her long, dark hair flowed down around the end of the altar where her head lay. She was conscious but looked as if she was drugged. She was not moving.
Cecilia! Oh no!
Rafe walked out into the midst of the hooded followers. He no longer cared if he was seen. Another black, robed figure walked onto the altar. He held a long blade; the handle was encrusted with jewels. The two figures pulled off their hoods. The first was the woman he had seen before. The other figure was a man. I’ve seen him before as well, thought Rafe. But where?
The man walked to the altar and stood before it. He started chanting. The followers responded with a crescendo of rising voices. The climax was coming. The man raised the blade into the air over Cecilia.
Rafe burst through the crowd and screamed, “No!” The man thrust the blade down towards her abdomen and the crowd roared. Rafe was halfway through the crowd, forcing his way through the hooded figures, screaming as he went. His view of the ceremony was blocked by the ecstatic crowd. Someone grabbed him from behind, and a cloth containing some type of chemical was forced over his face. The lights went out.
Someone was washing his face. He felt the cold rag on his forehead. It felt nice and he hoped it would continue. Dreams of distant events in his past washed over his unconscious mind. His mothers face flashed before him but was gone as quickly as she had come. Slowly, he began to realize all was not well.
As like tiny cuts from a sharp knife, the realization of what had happened slowly returned to his being. Rafe tried to get up but was held down by strong, caring arms. “Not yet, my son. Be still,” he heard the voice say. “You’ve been attacked.”
Then he realized it was the priest from the monastery and the recent events rushed back to his memory. Rafe had a splitting headache and a metallic taste in his mouth from whatever chemical had been used to render him unconscious. I’ve got to get up and awake!
He soon realized he was lying in a bed in a chamber in the monastery. There were no personal effects lying about, so he surmised it was some sort of guest room. The only item of decoration was an Orthodox Cross hanging on the wall. “What happened?” Rafe asked as he opened his eyes.
“You tell me, my son,” replied the priest. “We found you lying by your car, unconscious. So we brought you inside. That was about an hour ago. It is morning now. Why did you return? Do you remember anything?”
Rafe became fully awake. “Do you have some water?”
“Of course.” The priest handed him a cup and he drank rapidly. Then he sat up, getting his bearings as he felt his strength returning. He then got out of bed, put on his shoes. Ignoring the priest, he started walking, then running back through the corridors of the monastery towards the cave. A few minutes later, he arrived. The priest followed shortly after.
“What is wrong, my son?” Rafe ignored him.
Rafe darted over to the wooden platform, which had been lowered back to the earth. He pulled hard on the upper lip of the wood and jerked the pallet off the ground, expecting to find the iron door that he had entered the previous night.
Except there was no door. There was only earth. There was no evidence of any entrance. The only thing there was an engraving of a man riding a bull and slaying it with a spear.
Rafe turned and looked at the priest, his eyes betraying his rage.
“You’d better start talking and telling me what is going on here!” he demanded. "I want my daughter! Now!"
The priest stared at Rafe and said nothing for a few moments then he spoke in a low voice that Rafe could barely hear. The man had to be seventy years old, and his shoulders drooped as he spoke.
“You are not one of them, as I reasoned when I found you next to your car. So I will explain as much as I can. My son, there are things going on here that date back almost a thousand years that you cannot understand. Vladimir the Great founded this monastery centuries ago. He united all of the Slavic tribes under one kingdom. Kievan Rus’ was the most powerful kingdom in all of Europe for a brief period. He chose Christianity for his people. He even married a Byzantine princess to unite what was left of the Holy Roman Empire with the Kingdom of Rus’. But it was not to last. Kiev was overrun by the Mongol invasions. We lost everything as a kingdom. The princes of Rus’ fled to the village of Moscow far to the north.”
“What does that have to do with what is going on here?” he screamed. “And where is my daughter? Last night a woman was murdered that I knew! I knew her dammit! She was good to me! Where is Clare?”
“My son, I do not know the answers to your questions. I do not know where your daughter is, but I can pray for you and her. You see, centuries ago, a group of people entered this place during those terrible days of the invasions. I fear they are still here. I fear they are what you saw last night, and I fear they are what you are trying to find. The people that come here we call the visitors. They come to the monastery in groups and then they leave sometime later. You see, long ago a pact was made. The monks agreed the visitors could come, and in return, the monks were promised their safety and that they could continue their religious life. I’m afraid this pact still exists. That is all I can tell you because it is all that I know.”
Rafe looked at the priest in disbelief. “You mean to tell me they have been coming here for a thousand years?”
“Yes.”
Rafe fell to the floor and sat. He was dumbfounded. “Why here? And what happened to the tunnel I saw last night?”
“That I also do not know.”
“What do I do now? How do I save my daughter?”
The priest walked over to him and put his hand on Rafe’s head. He held out his other hand and Rafe took from him a small, oval flat object made of silver. “My son, we found this next to you. Perhaps this will lead you in the right direction.”
Rafe took the metal piece and looked at the faint inscription. It was a coin of some kind and very thin, like a dime run through a press. He looked at the priest and said, “Where is this from?”
The priest looked at him sadly and said, “I think that is for you to find out.”
Rafe doggedly rose from his position on the floor of the cave. “I’m on this journey that I have been on now for several weeks. I will continue until I find my daughter.”
“My son, I must tell you, please be careful. If someone wanted you to die, you would be dead already. Yes, you are correct, you are on a journey. The problem is someone else knows where you are going and you do not. I will pray for you.”
Rafe thanked the priest, left the cave, and continued the trek to the entrance to the monastery. He turned to leave and faced the priest one last time. “Thank you.”
“As I said, my son, I will pray for you and your daughter.”
Chapter Twelve
Rafe sat at the table in the corner of the library, a stack of books in front of him detailing the history of coinage in Russia, Ukraine, and the general Slavic territories. The small, silver coin he had found at the monastery was safely in his
pocket, yet he remembered the imprint vividly. From time to time he would take it out and compare it to the pictures of specimens he found in the books. So far, he had not found a resemblance. He was frustrated.
The Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine was located in central Kiev and was a modern architectural structure filled to the brim with over fifteen million items. It was a virtual treasure trove of Slavic civilization, containing historical writings, art, manuscripts, musical scores, and other matter. Vernadsky, born in the late eighteen hundreds, was the patriarch of Russian and Ukrainian geochemistry and founded the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences during the Russian Civil War. If Rafe was going to find out information on the coin, it would be here at this library somewhere. The problem was the amount of records here was so large, it could take some time. Maybe a lot of time. Time which I don’t have. Time is running out.
After leaving the monastery, he had made his way as quickly as possible in the rental car back to Kiev, the potholed roads notwithstanding. The priest could not provide any more information on the visitors or the location of the chamber he had seen the day before. Nor could he comment on the ritual he had seen. Rafe had the sense the priest was not being truthful. Hard to believe. I think the priest is part of this somehow. He’s sending me on my way on purpose. It’s like everyone I have met knows more than I do. I’m like a lamb on the way to the slaughter. He had left early in the morning and arrived back in Kiev before the library closed for the day. He searched for answers until forced to leave. Rafe was waiting the next morning for the facility to open to continue his quest for information. After eight more hours of research, he was growing tired, though the pile of books to go through was still formidable.
He had narrowed down the time period from which the silver piece emanated. It was definitely an early example of Russian coinage from the beginning of the sixteenth century. Ivan the Terrible’s mother, Elena Glinskaya, had instituted currency reform before Ivan took the throne. Russia, having united many of the eastern Slavic tribes of the land, began to mint currency for the entire kingdom. Rafe knew the coin fit this period because of the inscription on one side which matched many of the early coins he had found in his research. He had also studied the imprints on the silver under a magnifying glass used for ancient texts in the historical wing of the library. The face of the coin, however, was like nothing that could be found. It consisted of a center Orthodox Cross surrounded by eight smaller crosses circled around it. Coins in that day were struck by cutting a wire made of silver in equal lengths, therefore providing an equal amount of metal for each article. The silver was then hammered between an upper and lower die to create the images. This is what gave the coin its oval shape.