The Covenant Of The Flame

'Okay, just a minute. Calm down,' Craig said. 'Back up. What do you mean they're about to assume control?'

'After they escaped from Montsegur, the small group of heretics fled from southwestern France, trying to put as much distance as possible between them and their hunters. They headed farther south into Spain, where they sought refuge in an isolated mountain valley, the range that we now call the Picos de Europa. There, they determined to replenish their cult, to learn Spain's language and customs, to try to blend, which they did successfully, practising their contemptible rites in secret. For more than two hundred years, they flourished, eventually sending contingents to other sections of Spain. After all, in case their central nest was discovered, the other nests would still have a chance to preserve their repulsive beliefs.'

'Pamplona and Merida,' Tess said.

The stranger's gaze intensified. 'Why do you mention those areas?'

'Priscilla. The woman your men took to the clinic. She told me,' Tess said. 'In fact, almost everything I know about Mithraism comes from her. She used to be a professor. She's an expert in-'

'Answer my question. What do you know about those areas?'

'On a research trip, Priscilla saw Mithraic statues in caves near those cities.'

'Truly, I never expected… You've told me something I didn't know. We've been trying to find the central nest. Now you've pointed me toward possible other nests.'

'Answer my question,' Craig said. 'What do you mean they're about to assume control?'

'After two hundred years, the heretics felt secure. But then in fourteen seventy-eight, the Spanish Inquisition began. Earlier there'd been purges throughout various other countries in Europe, but the Spanish Inquisition was by far the most extreme. Enforcers hunted heretics everywhere. No village was too small to avoid a purifier's attention. But the vermin – resourceful, resilient – fled again. To northern Africa, specifically Morocco. Taking utmost precautions, they came together for a critical secret meeting in which they decided that in order to protect their religion, they needed to counterattack, to rely on every devious means possible to guarantee their survival. The final decision was to train representatives to leave the nest, conceal their true identity, and seek power, to imbed themselves within society and gain sufficient political influence to stop the persecution. To infest! As you might expect, their initial efforts were minor. But since the fourteen hundreds, the heretics have spread, multiplied, and infiltrated every important institution in Europe and America. They've risen to the highest levels of government. It was due to their influence that the Inquisition was finally dissolved. And now the crisis is universal. They're about to assume complete control, to impose their vicious errors upon the world.'

'Obviously you're exaggerating,' Craig said.

'Hardly. It's impossible to exaggerate the extremes to which they've gone. The vermin are convinced that the evil god is destroying the planet. They feel an urgency as the year two thousand looms. The millennium and all it implies. Crisis. Apocalypse. Not satisfied with manipulating governments, they've organized their own Inquisition. They've sent assassins to eliminate anyone they feel is dominated by the evil god. You must have noticed the pattern. The killings. Everywhere. In Australia. Hong Kong. Brazil. Germany. Kenya. The North Atlantic. America. Industrialists. Developers. Corporate managers. Drift-net fisherman. Ivory hunters. The captain of the oil tanker that polluted and nearly destroyed the Great Barrier Reef. The vermin are executing anyone they blame for the greed, negligence, and poisons that threaten the planet.'

'My God,' Tess said, 'you're talking about the article I've been working on! Radical environmentalists attacking…!'

'No, not environmentalists. And when you speak of God, which God do you mean? I hope not a good god at war with an evil god,' the stranger said.

'I don't care about that! The fact is, the planet is in danger! It has to be saved!'

'A commendable notion,' the stranger said. 'However, if you believe in the one true God as /do, then you have to trust that God. He knows better than we do. If the planet dies, it's His will. It's part of His grand design. A punishment because of our sins. If we don't correct our ways, we'll be destroyed. But the vermin, the heretics, believe they obey a different god. A god that is non-existent. Their heresy challenges the true God's plan. And for that, they'll suffer in hell.'

'Don't you realize?'

'What?'

'You're as fanatical as they are!'

The stranger's calm reaction surprised her. The situation demands fanaticism. After all, a determined enemy requires an even more determined opponent.'

'That's not what I meant. One god. Two gods. You think you're right. They believe they're right. The world's collapsing, and you're fighting each other about theology! If anything, I empathize with the other side. At least, they're working to save the planet.'

'But they're also trying to kill you,' the stranger said. 'And they've succeeded in killing many others. Do you condone political assassination? Do you approve of the murders of industrialists, financiers, and-?'

'Your goal is to execute the heretics. Nothing would please you more. Killing. That's what you're about. How can you blame them for doing the same thing you do?'

'There's a difference,' the stranger said. 'I'm engaged in a war. But I kill combatants, not civilians. In contrast, they kill without discrimination. They destroy the innocent as well as the guilty. Your mother. Her only fault was that she happened to be present when they tried to kill you. For your mother's sake, I would have expected you to want revenge.'

'Yes, I do want someone to pay, but… Oh, Lord, help me. I'm so confused.'

'You're not alone,' the stranger said. 'To kill contradicts my very purpose as a priest. And yet…'He lowered his gaze. 'I pledged myself to protect the faith.'

The vestibule became silent.

Craig took advantage of the pause. 'I've got a lot more questions.'

'Yes. By all means.' The stranger slowly raised his head.

'You said that the heretics hurried from Spain when the Inquisition came too close.'

'Correct.'

'Then they went to Morocco.'

'Yes.'

'Which explains Joseph Martin's fascination with The Dove's Neck Ring, a treatise on courtly love, written by a Moor who immigrated to Spain.'

The stranger nodded.

'That also explains why Joseph Martin looked vaguely Spanish. Swarthy. Dark-haired. With Latin features as opposed to French. Does that mean the heretics not only blended with but bred with the local population?'

'Yes,' the stranger said. 'At the start, the group was so small that the vermin needed to replenish their gene pool. They converted their spouses to Mithraism and swore them to secrecy.' The stranger gestured. 'But you didn't mention one more detail about their features. In some descendants of the vermin, there's an unusual gene that makes their eyes gray. It's one of the few means we have to identify them.'

'Gray.' With a pang of grief, Tess vividly remembered the compelling color of Joseph's eyes. Their intensity. Their charisma.

'But if the Inquisition came so dangerously close that the heretics abandoned Spain,' Craig asked, 'why do you think that the central nest is still in…?'