“Nicholas Montague,” Willard said, advancing toward the same with an extended hand and a somber face. “Nicholas, we meet again.”
“So we do. Let it be the last,” and he motioned as if to force a duel upon Willard.
But the latter held his hand before him in the lantern light, “Do not be so quick to seal your doom.” He turned to the Elite Guards, “Depart from here, if you wish. You are Atiltians, and I your king, unless you continue to follow Gylain.” His was the majesty of a king. In the preceding days, he had become king in more than birth and right.
The soldiers bred with silence for a moment. They were trained to resist all pain and toil, to endure all hardships without wavering. Yet they were also trained to be loyal to the king, and, with Willard standing before them in the armor of the Plantagenets, they gave way. First one, then the other remaining three, bowed and said, “We obey.” Then they departed, leaving Montague alone with Willard and his followers.
Montague watched his soldiers’ lanterns as they were eaten by the darkness, listening to their fading footsteps. “So it goes,” he said, deserted in the end by those he forced to follow him. “So it goes,” he mumbled, thinking of something distant. But then – when he had collected himself again – he resumed: “Why do you spare me, your highness? What purpose do you have for me?”
“It is for my sake that your life is spared,” de Garcia stepped forward, “Because it was for another’s sake that my own was redeemed, and hers by yet another. It is the unending chain and even for you the time is at hand.”
“Then you wish to seduce me with forgiveness? Know that I am beyond your seduction, beyond all hope of redemption. If I am to be slain, let it be done.”
“No one is without hope,” Ivona said, “Unless his heart is so hard it will not admit the possibility of such hope.”
“Fool of a woman! Your words are eloquent, you think, but I know them to be fire before the water: easily extinguished by a moment’s thought,” and Montague drew his sword to strike her.
De Garcia intervened. He drew his own sword and rendezvoused with Montague’s blade as it cut the air, blocking it with a resounding clang.
“Do not resist,” de Garcia warned, but Montague turned his wrist in response, rotating his blade to open its pathway to de Garcia’s chest. The great warrior would not have it, though, and turned his sword downwards while pushing its rounded sides against Montague’s hand. Then – without visible exertion – he brought the sharp point to play and placed it to Montague’s throat.
“You are better than I,” the latter said. “Dispose of me, for I am weak and do not deserve life.”
“Yield, and I will not consider it against you.”
“Yet you are not the keeper of accounts!” Montague hit de Garcia over the head with his broad side, causing him to stumble. Once clear of the party, he dove into the darkness with a covered lantern in his hand.
De Garcia started after him. Willard called him back, “He is gone.”
And indeed, he was. Montague did not stop until he reached the tunnel to the outside. Then, assured he was not pursued, he stopped to consider his course.
“Who is there?” he whispered, “I can hear your breathing, your hissing.”
“How easily you forget!” a familiar voice returned.
Montague opened the flaps of the lantern, casting a beam of light upon the creature. It was the same which he had spoken with before.
“You are but a man, fool,” and he hit the creature’s head with the broadside of his sword, to dislodge its mask.
But the creature did not move, nor did its head roll to the ground. For it was not a mask that he wore.
“Welcome to eternity,” it hissed in return, “Welcome to my harem!”
“My God!” Montague fell silent. “And yet I forget – I have no god but you!”
Chapter 70
“Time runs short,” Patrick said, his voice as heavy as the darkness.
“But what to do?” asked de Garcia. “To go deeper into the mountain risks the return of the masked men, but to turn back risks our purpose.”
“Forward,” Willard said, “For if they would have us, we are already theirs. Come, in the light I saw the path forward,” and he started toward the pillar in the center of the chamber.
After a moment of blind travel, their lanterns struck the stone door, all of which could not be seen in the dim light. Its face was covered in esoteric symbols, carved meticulously in vertical columns. Each figure was at once hieroglyphic or symbolic: a drawing that represented a single idea, usually according to the Egyptian system. At the same time, however, each of these symbols was also an alphabetic letter: the symbol was drawn as an embellishment of a letter, the alphabet of which was an ancient ancestor of both the Phoenician and Mayan alphabets. Because of this dual purpose, the writing could be read two different ways, depending on whether the symbols were read as hieroglyphics or letters. Yet there was also a third message, for the individual symbols were mosaics of a larger image, which – when taken abstractly – formed a giant third symbol.
“There is writing upon its surface,” de Garcia said as he held the lantern against the door. “But I cannot read it.”
“Nor can I,” Leggitt added, “But I am fluent only in French, Latin, and Atiltian.”
“My father has many books in his library,” Ivona offered, “Perhaps I can make sense of them where others cannot.” She stepped forward and examined the face of the door. “Space the lanterns apart, so the whole door can be seen at once,” and they did.
Ivona stepped back to look as they stood close and held the lanterns.
“Ingenious!” she cried as she grasped the pattern. “There are three meanings, each derived by reading it a different way. The first two are dialogs from lesser gods to mortals, and the last is a greater God’s answer,” and she read as follows:
LETTERS : You are cursed and downtrodden, for you are men treated as gods. Yet he who was first is now last, and he who was highest is now lowest. Uranos, beware the Titans.
SYMBOLS : The ocean’s crust is pierced by the trident and its sons are sent to Hades. No longer will the ancients reign, for they think themselves more ancient than even the gods.
MOSIAC : A picture of a White Eagle, its claws extended and its eyes gleaming, holding a lion’s head in its talons.
“There is a hole in the center, a rectangular place for a tablet, but there is nothing around. Whatever it says, we cannot know.
“No doubt, but we are not here to understand ancient scribblings,” Patrick said. “We have come to retrieve the Holy Graal, so let us be on with it. The air grows fouler every moment we remain.”
“So it does,” Willard said, and he laid his shoulder against the door to force it open. The others joined him and it began to creak, then to rumble, and at last swung open – rousing the dust and sediments of many years. There was a mysterious glow for an instant, but it passed quickly.
The opening revealed an ancient staircase, roughly hewn from the stone from which the pillar had been carved. It was narrow and steep, curving around within the diameter of the pillar and leading them to the mountain above. Even after it passed from the chamber it did not expand: they could walk only in single file. The ornate carvings of the previous rooms ceased, replaced by a rough, minimalist architecture. Willard led them, led himself by the short lantern light that went before him. They could not stop to rest along the way, for the stairs were too narrow to sit upon and too steep to be leaned upon.