The Sword of Moses

by Dominic Selwood

  Ava gasped.

  It was beyond magnificent.

  She had never seen anything like it.

  It was unrecognizable from the grime-covered object she had discovered at the Basilica di San Clemente.

  There, in the airless cobwebbed chamber below the mithraeum, she had merely seen a dust- and filth-caked candlestick. It had been so encased in centuries of dirt that it could have been made of iron, wood, or plaster for all she knew. She had rubbed a small section to expose the metal underneath—but the rest of it might have been made of anything.

  But the candelabrum she was looking at now had been lovingly cleaned up and was unquestionably all gold. It gleamed and glowed with an inner radiance, shimmering in the half-light with all the splendour of one of the greatest treasures of the ancient world.

  It was overwhelming—a vast symbolic tree of life. Gold artworks of its size simply did not survive from the Hebrew Bronze Age. All that usually made it into museum collections were a few small remnants of personal jewellery.

  Ava gaped at it.

  The craftsmanship was flawless.

  The main stem was exquisite. Each of its seven lamps was beaten into the shape of an almond flower—its five petals folding around to hold the oil basin. Beneath each flower was a supporting bed of buds and blossoms, and under each arm were three more almond-shaped cups for storing additional oil.

  Shaking her head in wonder, she was still thrilled to see she had been right about the angled arms and triangular base.

  Its shape alone would rewrite history.

  It was more beautiful than she had ever imagined.

  According to the Bible, the Hebrews had originally carried it with them on their wanderings in the desert. Wherever they stopped, they set it up in the special Tabernacle tent along with the Table of Showbread and the Altar of Incense, leaving the Ark screened off in the Holy of Holies at the far end of the tent. Then, later, when Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem, they moved the items there permanently, and the Menorah’s flame burned brightly night and day.

  She could picture it in her mind, in the dark Temple, burning pure consecrated olive oil in all seven lamps from evening until morning, when only the central flame would be left to burn again until the evening.

  It was an exceptional object, and she could easily understand that it had been one of the early kingdom of Israel’s most treasured possessions.

  But even though the Menorah was breathtaking—it was the item next to it that would dominate the international front pages.

  It would be the find of the century.

  After censing the Menorah with clouds of the pungent Temple incense, Saxby and Malchus moved towards the other shrouded object.

  Ava could feel her breathing becoming so shallow it almost stopped

  This was it.

  This was the moment she had anticipated for so long.

  Finally, she was going to come face to face with the Ark of the Covenant. She would have the historical Ark physically in front of her—not a dull grainy photograph like the one Prince had beamed onto the screen at Camp as-Sayliyah. It would be as tangible as the breathtaking Menorah beside it.

  There was total stillness in the room as Malchus and Saxby arrived in front of it. All eyes were on them.

  Ava held her breath, and felt her heart racing.

  As the two men took hold of the cloth, the expectant silence was shattered by the harsh explosive sound of loud automatic gunfire—right outside.

  Pandemonium erupted in the room, snapping Ava back to reality with a rude jolt.

  Malchus’s security team rushed for the door. Around them, weapons appeared from under clothing as the spectating paramilitaries scrabbled to arm themselves and pour out of the door towards the source of the shots.

  Within seconds, Ava could hear fire being returned in multiple bursts, and in no time there was the familiar staccato chatter of a pitched gun battle.

  Her mind was spinning.

  Who on earth was shooting?

  Possibilities raced through her mind.

  Had some of the guests been outside? Had they fallen out? Given the kind of people attending, she doubted it would have taken more than a few raised words before weapons were drawn and the camaraderie shattered.

  As the gunfire intensified, she could not help but hope Max and his men had arrived. She had no idea if they would have had time to get there, as she had no watch and no indication how long she had been knocked out. It had been long enough for someone to have dressed her, made her up, and tied her to the stake—but she had no sense whether it had taken ten minutes or three hours.

  “Continue,” Saxby ordered Malchus. “Tonight we—” but what he said next was drowned out by another deafening volley of gunfire.

  Closer this time.

  Ava prayed the battle did not move into the room. If rounds began flying inside, she would be in a highly vulnerable position. She had no way of taking cover and was defenceless—totally exposed to a stray bullet or anyone who wanted her dead.

  Undeterred by the sound of fighting, Malchus and Saxby approached the black-covered mound next to the Menorah.

  Ava was perspiring, unable to take her eyes off the dark cloth. She strained in the dim light to see their every move.

  She did not want to miss anything.

  Her heart was in her mouth as they gently pulled the cloth sideways, exposing the object underneath.

  With her nervous system at breaking point, she stared at what the cloth had slid away to reveal—not believing what she saw.

  She blinked several times to make sure her eyes were not playing tricks on her.

  It seemed they were not.

  She had been so certain it would be the Ark that she had not even considered the possibility it might not be.

  But unless she was hallucinating, what she was looking at was definitely not the Ark of the Covenant.

  She could feel the shock passing through her like a physical pressure wave.

  With disbelief, she stared at the object lying on a red cushion on a table.

  Disappointment and frustration crashed over her.

  She sagged as the grim realization hit her.

  It had all been for nothing.

  She had come all this way to find they did not have the Ark.

  She had got it dreadfully wrong.

  Her capture had been pointless.

  And now so would her death be.

  She could feel herself choking with frustration as the sounds of the gunfire outside intensified.

  She stared numbly at Saxby as he stepped aside, giving her a clear view of the object on the table.

  It was a vicious-looking black iron spear tip, about a foot long. There were six sections of thin silver wire bound tightly around it, and a gold sleeve covering its centre. The lighting was dim, but she could also make out a Roman-era iron nail embedded into it.

  She recognized it immediately, having seen it in the Imperial Treasury at Vienna’s Hofburg Palace, when she had been in the Austrian capital giving a guest lecture on Babylonian cylinder seals at the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

  It was the Lance of Longinus, or Spear of Destiny—the Roman weapon used to slit open Christ’s side as he hung dying on the cross. The Allies had found it among Hitler’s treasures in Nuremburg and given it back to Austria.

  So what was it doing here?

  Had Malchus stolen it?

  She struggled to understand, and also to work out why she was looking at a small artefact from around AD 30 when it should have been a much larger one from 1290 BC.

  Malchus had returned to the centre of the stage, and was now holding the silver dish filled with goat’s blood high above his head, his eyes raised upwards in supplication. “Et dabo prodigia in caelo et in terra sanguinem et ignem et vaporem fumi. Sol vertetur in tenebras et luna in sanguinem antequam veniat dies domini magnus et horribilis.”28

  Whatever he was going to say next was drowned out as a hail of gunfire strafed across
the cellar’s far wall, kicking up clouds of dust as the bullets gouged deep holes in the stones.

  Groups of the men were now running back into the crypt again, taking up defensive positions around the stage, training their weapons on the door.

  The large guard with the tattoos made straight for Malchus. “Some German crew,” he shouted up to Malchus above the noise of the gunfire. “And they’re heavily tooled up.”

  ——————— ◆ ———————

  109

  The ‘Gruft’ Vault

  Wewelsburg Castle

  Büren

  Paderborn

  North-Rhine Westphalia

  Federal Republic of Germany

  The exchanges of gunfire outside the chamber were intensifying—becoming louder and more sustained.

  The hulking tattooed leader of Malchus’s security team was close to Ava, shouting orders at the other paramilitaries who had followed him back into the room. He indicated for them to take positions on either side of the cellar, leaving the centre clear. He pointed at the entranceway. “Door funnel. Kill zone.”

  Ava’s heart was hammering.

  This was not good.

  If the plan was to bring the fight into the cellar so the intruders could be picked off as they came through the door, then Malchus and his ceremony were the least of her immediate worries.

  Her chances of surviving a firefight in the enclosed space were not good.

  Meanwhile, Saxby had finished censing the Spear of Destiny, and he and Malchus were now crossing the stage towards her.

  The smoke from the charring meat was mingling with the incense Saxby had been using to bless the various objects, creating a thick heady mix that was making Ava lightheaded.

  As the two robed men approached her, she could feel her mouth going dry.

  Was this it?

  She stared into the eye-slits of their tall pointed hoods and thought with regret of Ferguson.

  How long had he been in the well?

  She had no way of knowing. She felt a pang of guilt. He would not be in this mess if it had not been for her. But at least while Saxby and Malchus were on the stage, focused on the ceremony, they would not be carrying out their revenge on him.

  That would come later.

  Unless she could think of something.

  There were now more weapons joining in the exchanges outside—small arms and automatic fire.

  The two sides were digging in.

  To her surprise, as the two hooded figures drew level with her on the stage, they did not say anything or slow down, but carried on purposefully, walking straight past her.

  Confused, she twisted her torso half around to see what they were doing, but the position of her body, lashed to the front of the post, severely restricted her ability to move.

  Undeterred, she craned her neck around as far as she could, and looked out of the corner of her eyes into the darkened section of the stage directly behind her, where Saxby and Malchus were now walking.

  Her heart missed a beat as she saw the area for the first time.

  At the far rear left of the stage, beyond where Saxby and Malchus were standing, was a large object. And just like the Menorah and the Spear of Destiny, it was draped in a thick black cloth.

  However, unlike the other two ancient artefacts, the heavy cloth over it was not able to conceal the unusual shape lying beneath it.

  Ava could feel a prickle of electricity running up the back of her neck as all the hairs stood on end.

  It was rectangular—like a packing chest, with what looked like two long poles sticking outwards from either side, a high peak above the centre of the top, and two lesser peaks at the top left and right.

  In the split second it took her to realize what it was, the cellar began to feel unbearably hot, and she was suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. It was partly the angle at which she was twisting her neck, reducing the blood flow to her head. But it was largely the sheer shock of what she was looking at—seeing it there. Finally. In the same room as her.

  The Ark.

  She inhaled deeply, not quite believing her eyes.

  It had been there all along.

  She was perspiring.

  Right behind her.

  She watched in a daze as Saxby and Malchus stopped in front of it, one at either end.

  She held her breath as they slowly took hold of the black cloth.

  Time seemed to stand still and then move in slow motion as they gently slid the material off, revealing the object underneath.

  If it had not been for the physical pain from twisting her neck round so far, she would have been sure she was dreaming.

  When Saxby and Malchus had unveiled the Menorah, she had wondered if any antique artefact would ever be able to impress her as much again.

  But now, looking at the Ark, she immediately knew the answer.

  Stunned, she could only stare at it as an avalanche of intense emotions broke over her.

  It was nothing like she had imagined, and like no drawing or model of it she had ever seen.

  The sheer quantity of gold was spellbinding. It glowed and gleamed in the light from the braziers every bit as radiantly as the Menorah, bathing the air around it in a shimmering aura.

  The Bible said it was made of acacia wood, then covered with gold inside and out, with four gold rings for the gold-covered carrying poles and a lid with hammered gold cherubim at either end.

  But the Bible mentioned nothing about the sublime decoration.

  She could not discern the details clearly, but she could see enough to tell her that the Ark and the lid were divided into panels of beaten gold. That was not so unusual. What was mesmerizing her was that every square inch of gold was covered in a riot of imagery.

  Nothing had ever prepared her for this moment.

  The Ark was indescribably beautiful—more intricate and skillfully made than she had ever imagined.

  She did not doubt its age, but found it impossible to believe that these two objects—the Ark and the Menorah—had been created by Bezalel of Judah and Aholiab of Dan, two amateurs chosen in the Sinai desert as the Hebrews crossed from Egypt to Israel. From what she could see in front of her, the Ark and Menorah had undoubtedly been made in one or more workshops by whole teams of highly skilled and experienced artisans.

  Dizzy with excitement, she tried to take it all in, to feast upon it. Others in the room were doing likewise. Despite the dangerously close gunfire, a large number of the men in the room were now crowding around the Ark.

  They were partially obscuring her view, so she could see little more of the Mercy Seat than that the cherubim’s wings stretched up at a dramatic angle to create a triangular space above the lid. According to the Bible, that was where Yahweh said he would meet with the Hebrews.

  She had once put together a three-dimensional computer graphic recreation of King Solomon’s Temple for the British Museum, and had included a replica Ark to scale. Looking at the real one now, she was pleased to see she had been correct in concluding it used the shorter cubit, which made it around three-and-a-half feet long by two feet wide.

  It was still an immense size—a huge weight for the men who had to carry it around.

  She stared, captivated by the extraordinary relic—a gleaming window into the long-lost roots of western history.

  As she was drinking it in, Saxby had begun censing it, and Malchus had returned to the front of the stage, where he was crouching low by the grate. He had the bowl of hyssop in his hand, and was emptying the remaining drops onto the coals with a loud hiss. He dipped the now-empty bowl into the silver dish in which the goat’s blood was still bubbling, then handed it to Saxby, before picking up a large old leather tome from the Table of Practice.

  Ava watched closely as he headed towards her, the volume open in his hands.

  This was surely it?

  The start of the section of the ceremony which would climax with her murder?

  She could not quite believ
e that they were continuing with the ritual.

  Surely the gunfight meant they would have to stop?

  But as Malchus continued to approach her, he showed no sign of calling a halt to the proceedings.

  Breathing deeply to quell her rising panic, she noted that the curved knife he had used to slit the goat’s throat was still on the floor by the animal’s carcass. He had not picked it up yet, which was reassuring. But she knew it would not be long now.

  As he drew level with her, she could smell the goat’s dried gore on his hands. She tensed, unable to keep images of its slashed throat from her mind.

  Malchus turned so he was standing beside her, and held out the book in front of him so they could both read from its aged pages. Ava did not recognize the title—the Lemegeton, but from the deep ochre cover, hard boards, leather thong binding, and typography, she guessed it was from the 1700s.

  However, Malchus was only using it as a prop. On its large leaves lay the smaller loose typed sheets of his translation of the London version of The Sword of Moses, along with printouts of the small pages of tiny original Hebrew and Aramaic writing from the genuine Oxford manuscript.

  He began reading from the translation in a loud clear voice:

  “Ye sacred angels, princes of the hosts who stand upon the thrones prepared for them before him to watch over and to minister to the Sword, to fulfil by it all the wants by the name of the master over all; you chiefs of all the angels in the world, I pray of you to do everything that I am asking of you, as you have the power to do everything in heaven and upon earth as it is written in the law.”

  Ava read along, following the text, wondering what part she was supposed to play.

  “I conjure you, Azliel, Arel, Ta’aniel, Tafel, Yofiel Mittron. With these your names, and with the powers you possess to which there’s nowhere anything like, I conjure you to show me, and to search for me, and to do all my bidding.”

  She was listening carefully for any clues to how the ceremony would unfold.

  From the ending of almost every name in ‘-el’, it was clear the spell first called upon a cohort of angels to assist with the summoning.