He stood paused,
taking in a difficult breath, the pain in his side, the pain that came from his
heart, had seized the fingers of his hand in a stronghold of spasms. There was
little time to do what had to be done. Bent and pain-ridden he took himself
through that darkness lit by the meagre light to the altar in the south. He placed
the candle at the foot of the little effigy of Christ; it made shadows over the
Vesica Pisces carved into the altar’s stone face. He traced the grooves with
his fingers – the bladder of the fish, the womb of God, beneath it the
twin circles of duality. Raising his eyes he saw only vaguely what lay
inscribed with pigment on the domed ceiling and despite the chill, the
damp-cold that sunk to the bones, the symbols filled him with warmth. It
occurred to him now that his strange Egyptian dreams of the great sarcophagus
of stone, the dreams of the small flickering flame, had been a prediction of
this end. But he had little time to think on it, for he was once more struck by
the pain that yawned in his chest and left him gasping for air. He would have
to gather the forces that lay unspent in his mind, heart and will, to keep from
dying long enough to lay the seal to rest – before that part of him that
was wedded to evil made a move to prevent it.
Kneeling on one
knee and holding on to the altar, he took into his lungs an in-sweep of breath
and it was as his mind was returned to itself and he prepared to pray that he
realised, by the chill in the air, that it had come, and that he was no longer
alone with the darkness . . .
Blessed St
Michael, son of the Divine Sophia, messenger of Christ, protect me!
There was a
profane whisper near his ear and it made his hair to stand on end.
What speaks?
He drew his eye
about, turning his head this way and that – something in the shadows was
seeking to enter into him. He grasped at the cross on the garments of the
Order.
Thou art my
saviour and my comforter. Overcome, O Lord, those who are against me. Help me
to finish it finally!
But it had moved
closer to observe him, to throw limbs of shadows over him.
I battle with
forces that may be beyond me . . . Hark! It comes!
Like a wall of
heated frost it made a leap towards him.
I – will
– not – yield!
It struck then,
and the pain swelled through him and out from the old wound in his side, from
that place where all his hurts came together, as though it had been torn open
and the mangled flesh ripped out. He fell forward and his cheek touched the
stone floor. Sounds not intelligible danced in his head and a force compelled
him from his knees to his heels. He swayed. His eyes were struck sluggish and
he tried to see. Why could he not see? His ears stretched out to become one
with the silence. Why could he not hear?
But the force
was more than eyes, more than ears, and had made a place for him in its
wretchedness. In it Etienne felt himself dissolving, and in his mind the thread
upon which his salvation now hung was St Michael. He gathered all his strength
in order to prevail upon his assistance.
Michael, take
hold of arms and shield and rise up to help me. Send forth the spear and conclude
against those who persecute me; say to my soul ‘I am your safety . . .’
But the whole
mind and purpose of evil was bent with devastating force upon him.
‘Yield it! Dead
man!’ it said. ‘Insignificant, corrupt and rebellious man! You could never bear
it, dead man, old man,
slave
! Your faith splinters . .
. and you will yield it!’
Christ
protect
me! Enter my Temple and defend me from those who are
attacking me!
‘Why should
Christ protect a coward who abandoned his mother to save his own life,’ it
said, ‘who deserted his Grand Master and all the brothers of the Order and left
them to languish in prisons or to die with the skin melting from their bones?
You were afraid, pious man, defeated man! Afraid of the devil in your soul and
in your heart! And while you were praying for forgiveness, elsewhere a woman
was savaged and her child torn to pieces! Now Jourdain and the Catalan and all
the men who have ever followed you shall have their heads cut off, and their
bodies hung from the walls of this castle for the flies and the hawks, while
you guard this small thing, old man, dead man! They shall die knowing that you
have deserted them!’
These thoughts
speared into his soul a channel so wide he felt himself emptied and sunk down
into nothingness.
A howl came out
of his soul, and the hiss of a whisper came into his ear: ‘If you love them
more than you love yourself, you may yet prevent it! The death of your
brothers, the burnings, the arrest of the Order! The seal shall return all
things to their former state . . . you need only call on its power!’
The breath
departed from his lungs and formed itself in the cold stillness into portions
of eternity grasped in the moment – the flame script of his life. In it
he observed those years before Acre, when faith had a footing and a man knew
what season would follow from the next. He was full with despair and longing .
. . to return all things to their former state.
It was
far-reaching into his soul and alluring to his mind, this desire.
‘The seal must
obey its bearer,’ the voice said. ‘It shall hammer out the world into a shape
not displeasing to you! Conjure the spirits in the earth; in the depths; in the
sun and in the stars; in the waters and in the seas, and all which they
contain; in the winds, the whirlwinds, and the tempests; in the virtue of all
herbs, plants, and stones; in all which is in the heavens, upon the earth, and
in all the abysses of the shades. Conjure them and they shall do your bidding!’
But his heart in
its death throes brought him to his senses, and Etienne, bent and gasping, was
made aware in that moment of the impiety of this backward glance, of the
wickedness of this allurement. It was not his place to unfasten destiny, to
shape the world and use its forces for his ends, but to live life according to
God’s laws! He knew the truth of it, and it formed for him a bulwark against
which he could lean. He threw his mind away from reveries and turned it towards
the shadows.
My will is not
my own!
The air agitated
around him.
‘Old man! Dead
man! The evil in you shall overtake the good!’
It – will
– not!
The chapel
swirled. There was a noiseless thunder. The creature was poised at the edges of
Etienne’s soul. ‘Where is your Archangel now!’ it said, and at that moment
Etienne was knocked back, and within him he felt the ice-sharp penetration of that
creature of dark surfaces.
In his head he
heard a thousand voices cry in lamentation, and wondered if they were the
voices of his brothers calling to him their rebuke. But he stood firm –
the power was not his to use. He would stand before the smooth eye of his foe
and feel what the abyss had in the making for him. He would look to the wide
spaces and fill his heart with God’s weaving
love,
he
would gaze upwards to the heights in selfless striving.
‘Save me, oh
God, by thy name!’
Shadows furled
and mantled, rising black inside him. He surrendered to the will of God and
prepared to succumb, to the smothering of his spirit.
Oh man, you have
known yourself – now behold anew the symbol and the name of a sovereign
and conquering God, through which all the Universe fears, trembles, and
shudders.
From the vast
shades amid which stood his hard-pressed will a growing radiance, a spirit
fire, drew about him, forming a circle to resist the shadows.
A feeling of
safety washed over him, there was a release and his mind fell away.
How long he lay
on the stone of the chapel he could not tell. When he woke he was numb from
cold and hollowed out from torment and bliss. In his heart he knew that the
mystery of his Order had not been stained with iniquity, it remained inviolate
and must now be put to rest. Jacques had been right – it was a powerful
thing, able to make a seal upon the heart of any man, be he profane or saintly.
He was paused a
long time without breath, then the bell was heard for chapter and there were
sounds of footsteps coming from the dormitories. He mustered what strength was
left to him since he knew the men were making their way to the hall for the
council. They would be looking for him, and though his heart was swelled with
anguish for it, he knew he must do it now, before they found him.
He undertook to
remove the ring from his finger but it would not come since he had grown
together with it and it would not live without him. His head felt light and
feathery as he brought forth the skull dagger given to him by Jacques de Molay
those many years ago
;
the same dagger with which he
had killed Marcus. He used it to trace the cross over his breast and made a
sign in the air with it, calling on St Michael to keep him from falling out of
his head before it was done.
He held his
breath and lifted the knife over his hand.
The old woman
was staring at the vision before her eyes. ‘Who is it?’ she asked St Michael.
‘Who is this man Etienne?’
In so many years
she had not allowed herself to think on it. Now the question that had waited
behind her tongue, kept silent by a force of will, was to be answered.
She blinked and
blinked again.
It is you
.
She gasped, and
her hands shook, a tremor passed over her and she was no longer herself but
that man, that knight Etienne on his knees with the ring in his hand. ‘My faith
runs in a thin, pale stream and my soul dries up as if it were barren soil. I
no longer know for what purpose I have battled and struggled and died . . . for
this end of ends, as an old, wasted woman?’
It is time!
‘My eyes are not
worthy – they are profane!’
Behold! What has
been hidden since the fall!
Etienne put down
the dagger, raised the hinged lid over the seal and leant closer to the candle.
The light was cast over the inward being of the ring and was reflected from
brass and iron. Etienne understood what he was seeing: the figure of a pentagram
fused to a hexagram overlaid by a backward ‘S’. In the middle a sun sat within
the cup of a sickle moon
;
above it a backward word
– Yom, and below that the word Layla. To the right the moon stood alone
with Pisces, to the left the sun and Virgo.
At the apex the
backward letters RE and IS. Etienne knew that it should have spelt REBIS had
the word not been interrupted by the two staves of the sign for Twins. Below
its polar opposite, Archer raised its arrow toward the sun.
With his eye he
entered into those lines, into those symbols, and moved through them and out
into the emptiness of space. He saw the deepest night Layla shot through with
intelligible light – Yom. He saw the equilibrium of earth and heaven,
birth and death, good and evil, resting upon the six-pointed star of his soul.
He understood then that he was below what existed above; that to spell the
great poem of the hidden word was to understand how in the trinity of his being
was sung the harmony of the universe; how in his blood the throb of pure wisdom
formed its forms, surging through his limbs, tearing and rushing through them
as if through a burning glass and fashioning him in the shape of a pentagram.
He was suspended and carried into the widths of space, where the winged sun of
his heart resting within the moon of his soul was dragged backward across a
path strewn with stars. He was Gemini at midday and Sagittarius at midnight; he
dawned in Virgo and fell into the twilight of Pisces.
Do you
understand what you have seen?
‘Life is
regenerate, renewed, washed and pure. The two are united and the third is
sealed within me.’
The world was
swept up then, blown down like pollen in a sky all blue and bronze and coloured
with frost, and he was thrown over the summits of ecstasy and returned to the
chapel. He took a moment to recover. It seemed to him that between one heart’s
pause and the next he had dreamt of the old woman of Puivert.
Now the memory
of the present returned. His head moved in circles. He contrived to summon his
wits to attention and his tortured body to its duty, but it took a great effort
to close the hinged lid and take up the dagger into his hand. At each moment he
despaired that he must soon pass out of life. He laid the ringed finger away
from the others over the stone floor and, leaning over it, made a lift of the
dagger once again. It paused in the air a moment, waiting for the command . . .
Cut!
He bore it down.
It sliced through and the ring came away and lay useless in the shadows. There
was a gush of blood and a deep heat travelled from his abused hand to his head.
Pain, full of intensity, clawed at his throat.
Soon he would sink
into the black.
He took the ring
and dragged himself to the wall behind the altar, where he had seen a natural
hole in the stone. He put the seal to its lip, as if it were his soul upon the
edge of a parapet. It was a good fit. He made a prayer and pushed the creature
in; it fell into the cavity behind.