Martin Klein had written algorithms to tag items with keywords for easier relational search. He was also working on a huge map of all the different faiths and traditions, linking common elements and trying to track the spread of ideas across the world. Jake had told Morgan that Director Marietti had a vision of establishing some kind of evolutionary religious psychology, a grand scale spread of ideas demonstrating how similar the faiths were instead of how divisive. ARKANE had published a number of papers from the study in mainstream journals. Unfortunately, most of the knowledge they had access to had been gained by less than legal means, so much of the ground breaking work could not yet be published. But the ARKANE network was growing, with scholars interested from all fields so this database was surely the best place in the world to search for a missing relic.
Morgan sat back in her chair, rubbing the base of her neck and rolling her shoulders. They had been at it for hours now, trying to track the path of Simon the Zealot across the early world of the early first century. They couldn’t leave Tel Aviv until they knew the next destination. Time was running out to find the final stone before Pentecost, but still they sat in a hangar waiting.
“No wonder Everett’s father couldn’t work out where the stone might be,” Morgan said with annoyance. “This guy went everywhere. His notebooks trace the same possibilities we’ve found, but there’s nothing conclusive on where Simon might have ended up.”
Jake looked up from his laptop, where he was reading Martin’s findings on the physical properties of the stones. He had extrapolated the effect of the stones when they were together based on the miracles of Varanasi and modeled the impact if they were somehow activated together.
“So what have you found so far?”
“There are so many accounts but Simon the Zealot was definitely a great traveler. He is said to have gone into Egypt and across North Africa to Carthage, then on to Britain before heading back East and being martyred in Persia. He was killed by being sawn in half, hence the saw he is often shown with in hagiography. One of his arms ended up as a relic in a church in Cologne, Germany but there are possible sites for his body as far away as England, Egypt or Tunisia in North Africa, and even back in Iran. How do we even know where to start?”
Jake leaned over to look at the map on the screen.
“We left this one for last because it’s the most difficult to find. We knew that,” he said with encouragement. “Just try to narrow down the options.”
“But we don’t have time to just sit around here.” Morgan said. “I have to check in with David soon, and he’ll go crazy if we don’t know where we’re headed next.”
She jumped up, nervous energy making her pace the length of the highly equipped cabin.
“I need Ben’s help,” she said. “The Blackfriars have access to so much history and tradition and maybe ARKANE doesn’t have everything in the database. Ben will be able to research at the same time as us and hopefully turn up some new information. He’s a walking encyclopedia of the early Church, so he might be able to shed some new light on the options.”
Jake hesitated as he knew Marietti had some history with Father Ben. He had warned Jake to stay away from him as much as possible and keep him in the dark about their journey. But the first priority of the mission was to find the stones, so he nodded.
“There’s Skype installed on the laptop. Go ahead.”
Morgan turned to the monitor, put on her headphones and skyped Ben. Technology was welcomed at Blackfriars and Ben was often in his study. He was there when she called and Morgan smiled to see his old face on the tiny screen. He embraced new technologies as much as he loved the crumbling old books of the Bodleian Library. His face was delighted at first but then creased into a frown.
“Morgan, where have you been? I’ve been so worried about you. The police are still investigating the murders here, calling them a terrorist attack on a religious institution. I’ve kept your name out of it so far, but those men are still after you.”
“I’m fine, Ben,” Morgan smiled. “Really. I’m sorry to have been out of touch. It’s been a whirlwind few days. We’ve found several more of the stones but I can’t tell you much right now. There’s no time. We only have a few days left and I need your help with a problem I can’t seem to solve.”
“Of course, what do you need?”
“I need to know about Simon the Zealot, where he went or may have ended up, and anything you can find on his relics.” Ben nodded in the little video screen, “and I need it soon.”
He looked directly into the camera.
“I understand the haste, Morgan. You’ll be desperately worried about Faye and Gemma.”
“It’s not just that. Our deadline is the feast of Pentecost itself when the comet will be at its zenith. Everett wants to re-enact the fiery event and call down the power of the stones.”
Ben raised one shaggy eyebrow.
“Pentecost is a grand myth, Morgan. It is a metaphor for the might of the Holy Spirit empowering the church through the Apostolic tradition. Why does he think the power of the stones is actual truth?”
Morgan glanced over at Jake, aware that her own doubts were crumbling under the weight of the evidence showing the possibility of a latent power.
“Something real happened at Varanasi,” she continued. “But whatever the truth really is, I need to take the remaining stones to him by Pentecost in order to have Faye and Gemma returned safely and I have to go along with what he wants for now. But this last stone seems to be the hardest one to find.”
“Of course,” Ben said. “I’ll head to the library now. There is knowledge here that even ARKANE doesn’t know about. I’ll get back to you with what I find as soon as I can. ”
Blackfriars, Oxford, England.
May 24 11.53AM
Ben logged off and gazed out of his window down onto the Blackfriars quad. There were young lay students there, as well as some of the monks in their habits and several policemen. They all seemed at a loss to understand what had happened here just a few days ago. Ben had played the forgetful old monk card and they had bought it, assuming him to be an innocent bystander caught in the cross-fire. No one else had seen Morgan, so her name was kept out of the news. Maybe he had Marietti to thank for that. At the thought of that man, Ben’s face darkened, but remembering what Morgan needed stopped him from descending into ancient memory and despair. He couldn’t let the past prevent her from saving Faye, but he was deeply suspicious of what ARKANE wanted and worried about how far Thanatos might go to get the stones. ARKANE dabbled at the edge of the supernatural, where shadows darkened at the edge of the light but sometimes they strayed too far into the grey.
Ben had several tutorials lined up that day with bright students, all eager to study the Church and find a way for the future of faith in these dark times. Ben sighed. The same arguments raged now as they did millennia ago but these students would still debate the meaning of the trinity, the paradox of suffering and the coming end times. There were no new thoughts under the sun, but Ben continued to live for the joy of studying here. Blackfriars was his true home, where he could immerse himself in learning and teaching as well as fulfilling a lifetime vow made to a dying friend.
Heading down into the Blackfriars library, he sat at one of the solid wooden desks so characteristic of ascetic Oxford. The chairs were hard to encourage students to get up and leave, or to choose to suffer physical pain while enriching their minds, a monastic attitude honed from centuries of learning. The windows of the library looked out onto St Giles, a busy road in the heart of the city with leafy green trees and students riding by on bikes piled high with books. The libraries in Oxford were still lending books; technology didn’t seem to change the need to physically handle these old tomes, but the project to digitize the entire Bodleian was nearly finished. The University was changing, albeit slowly in a fast-paced society and Ben knew the outside world looked at monks strangely, wondering why they made the choices they did. Part of it was the speed, for he had chosen the simple life of contemplation over the urge to be more, acquire more and yet remain unsatisfied.
He gazed out through ornamental stained glass panels, their colorful beauty filtering the light in shades of vermilion and aquamarine. Each panel depicted the heraldic emblem of an important friar in the history of the Blackfriars back to the 14th century. This was a center of tradition, an oasis of research that both exhausted and invigorated. Here was knowledge and devotion for God, the hours eaten up by the studying of ancient truth and the adoration of the divine.
Ben spent his free time in the many libraries of Oxford, as well as the Ashmolean Museum, a magnificent treasure trove of antiquity. He lived for new things to learn and study, no longer concerned with the physical. He had given that up as his penance and his service to the order. The only other obligation in his life was the protection of the twins and his promise to their mother. This promise now drove him to the books, hoping he could find what would help Morgan.
Ben’s experience lent him wisdom but the overflowing bookshelves behind him were his reference library. He retained almost photographic memories of which book held what information and where the book was in his own library or that of the school itself. The Blackfriars library had tomes that were physically large and chained in place to stop the students taking them away or damaging them, so they had to be read standing at special lecterns placed for that purpose only. He stood at one of the lecterns and pulled down the library’s copy of the ‘Legenda Aurea’, the Golden Legend, a collection of the lives of saints compiled in the thirteenth century. It was a popular ecclesiastical book and one of the first to be published in the English language by William Caxton. The original gospels, both those in the Christian Bible and those considered to be heretical, didn’t contain much information about what happened to the central figures in Jesus’ life. His followers dispersed after Pentecost and went their different ways but stories and traditions were passed down and collated in the Legends, which became the first popular collection of the lives of the saints. Ben knew it was based on the Dominicans’ own books of the lives of the saints, a more extensive, but little read source. Some of the stories were based on apocryphal texts like the Gospel of Nicodemus whereas others came from histories of other saints. There were visions and supernatural occurrences, some claimed to be myth and allegory, but beneath it all was a narrative of the travels of the Apostles. Ben found it to be repetitive, as all the saints performed miracles and then died in some horrible form of martyrdom. Nevertheless it was a good place to start in understanding where the stone of Simon the Zealot might be.
Refreshing his memory with the story of Simon, Ben found that, after preaching in Egypt, the Apostle travelled to Armenia and Persia with St Jude, also called Thaddeus. They converted many people there and were both eventually martyred in Persia. In other texts he found that Simon’s relics were scattered all over the Christian empire, from the Vatican in St Peter’s Basilica, to Toulouse in France. There was little else to be found here about the movements of the Apostle, so some deeper digging was going to be required. It was time to call in some favors from the Collegium Angelicum in Rome.
Returning to his room, Ben put in a call to the Grand Master of the Order, an old friend he had studied with in Rome many years before. He described what he was seeking. The old man on the phone became wary.
“Be careful, Ben. These are dangerous times to be meddling with stones that hold power, whether real or perceived. Why are you helping this woman, and why is ARKANE involved?”
“I believe ARKANE seeks to keep the stones for themselves, but Morgan and her sister Faye are like daughters to me. They’ve been marked for a special purpose and I believe I need to help them achieve it.” He paused. “I also made a vow to protect them as children and this is as sacred a promise as the one I made to the Church and the Order. I made it to a dying friend whose secrets I keep to this day. I must help them.”
The Grand Master sighed.
“Then I tell you this as an old friend, Ben, not as your Grand Master. I shouldn’t even be talking about this. The stones first came to our notice when they were sought by Nazi relic hunters during the Second World War. They were clutching at any myth to find supernatural weapons to help them triumph. When they came to the Vatican asking questions, the Order looked into the stones with more interest. I believe they even found some of the stones before they were lost again, but then you know all about that time.”
Ben’s voice was heavy with regret.
“Yes, it seems those old enemies may be rising again. I have seen the pale horse myself. An organization called Thanatos is using it as their calling card, and they are after the stones, too.”