Knights Templar - Temple And The Stone Part 32

Happily, the greater Light is constant. But after the dawn, I fear the attacks will change character, to focus on preventing the actual reempowering."

Two more attacks came before the dawn, each repulsed, but all the Stone's defenders were aware of the drain on their vitality. When the dawn finally came, they joined in prayers of thanks for their deliverance while Father Bertrand celebrated Ma.s.s upon the Stone and all of them partook of the fortifying grace of Holy Communion. Afterward, Arnault briefly emerged from the cave to join Torquil, who was standing behind his sword and gazing down into the ravine below.

"Any sign of the horses?" he asked.

Torquil pointed grimly. "Aye. Look there."

Just at the edge of the streambed, about twenty yards from the perimeter, Arnault spotted the skeletal remains of a large animal, its bones picked clean.

"I fear that may not be the only one," Torquil continued, "but I can't say I'm eager to go looking for them."

Gaspar overheard him, and came to join them. "Never mind the horses for now. I don't want you or anyone else venturing beyond our defenses. Daybreak has bought us a respite, but we are still under siege."

Flannan had drifted closer during the conversation-least experienced among them in esoteric matters-and jutted his chin toward the area beyond the defensive line. "What will happen if we can't hold the defense during the reempowerment?"

"We must hold it-not only for the sake of our own souls, but because Scotland's future and the fate of the Temple's Fifth Foundation depend on it," Arnault said bleakly. "And the danger will only increase as the time of Wallace's execution approaches."

Luc took charge of the outer defenses, again arranging watches so that some could rest while two at a time took the active watch behind the sword wall. Gaspar, Arnault, and the two Columban brothers, meanwhile, withdrew to the sanctuary of the inner cavern where the Stone of Destiny lay hidden. Here, they set about preparing the chamber for the work that lay ahead.

Arnault unsheathed the dagger that was blooded with his and Wallace's blood and laid it on the Stone.

The keekstane already lay in the shallow depression atop the Stone, symbolically occupying Wallace's place as the Uncrowned King. Gaspar was removing the wrappings from the High Priest's Breastplate.

The Columban brothers, meanwhile, had set fat candles alight in the sand at east, south, and west, and were quietly circling the chamber amid murmured prayers in the Gaelic tongue, Abbot Fingon with burning incense in a bowl of glazed clay, Brother Ninian with a like bowl of holy water, sprinkling the walls and floor. Seeing that the pair had their part of the preparations well in hand, Arnault turned to Gaspar, who was unpicking the threads closing a pair of small pockets st.i.tched to the back of the Breastplate.

"I've never used the Urim and Thummin," he said quietly. "I've never even seen them."

"The Lights and Perfections," Gaspar said with a faint smile. "Hold out your hands."

From out of the pocket on the right he took the Urim, a flat, oval piece of flawless quartz, clear as rainwater, of similar size to the gems st.i.tched to the front of the Breastplate. This he laid in Arnault's right hand. The Thummin, placed in his left, was of matching size, but of polished onyx. Both were engraved with mystical inscriptions, like the other stones on the Breastplate.

"Do we know the meaning of the symbols?" Arnault asked, feeling their cool substance and the faint tingle of their promise as he closed his hands around them.

"In general," Gaspar replied. "The stones themselves are only the vessels for the mystical attributes, of course-much as the Stone of Destiny is the receptacle for the grace that sustains the sovereignty of this land. Combined with the uniquely Celtic nature of the virtues focused in the keekstane, they should enable you to See what is needful, when the time comes."

Arnault nodded, touching both stones to his lips in turn, before carefully setting them on a strip of folded linen that Gaspar laid across the Stone of Destiny. Both of them then rose, Gaspar retreating to the west, where Arnault's sword still stood sentinel in the doorway, Arnault himself moving to the north of the Stone, to face south toward London and Wallace. Abbot Fingon was already waiting in the east, Ninian in the south.

"Shall we begin?" Abbot Fingon quietly asked Arnault.

Drawing breath and exhaling deeply, Arnault nodded.

"Then, let the Keeper of the Gate begin by invoking Cra-gheal, under whose protection we prepare to do battle," Fingon said quietly, nodding toward Gaspar.

Lifting his upturned palms to waist level, Gaspar closed his eyes and spoke.

"Great Michael, Cra-gheal, the red-white, defender of the gates of heaven, clothe us this day in the armor of sanct.i.ty. Michael the victorious, of the bright-brilliant blade, may you stand between us and harm."

"Mary of graces," Fingon said next, "of fairest, purest beauty, call down for us the grace of the Lamb, the Word made Flesh, that He may unite to Himself His servant William, receiving his soul as a worthy oblation, renewing the covenant with this holy realm."

"Blessed Bride, handmaid of virtue," Ninian took up the chant, "entreat for us the grace of the Consoler, the Comforter, bright fount of wisdom, that our hearts may be cleansed and we found worthy to serve the Three."

It fell to Arnault to complete their fourfold invocation. Lifting his heart and voice into the Sacred Presence, he commended them all to the intercessions of Saint Columba, who had brought them all together in their common cause.

"Kindly Columba, ever blessed, patron of this land's enlightenment, a.s.sist us as we seek fulfillment of the prophecy, that this land may be baptized anew into the Light. Amen."

Having now made such outward preparations as were possible, he picked up the keekstane and came around to sit in the south, with his back against the Stone of Destiny, settling inward in spirit as he closed his hand around that talisman, which was his link with Wallace. A few slow breaths slipped him smoothly into trance, and thought and image blurred as his soul took flight, borne on the wings of vision. When his senses righted themselves, he found himself once again with Wallace, but he held apart from any fuller contact, only observing as he sought to orient himself.

The Uncrowned King had been brought into the broad, vaulted expanse of a great hall, wrists bound behind him like a common criminal, his head now crowned with a circlet of laurel leaves, in mocking acknowledgment of the power he had wielded in the land now claimed by another king. A sea of hostile, leering faces parted before the prisoner as he was chivied up a long central aisle and made to climb a flight of makes.h.i.+ft steps to the top of a wooden scaffold.

On a broad dais opposite the scaffold was enthroned the steely-eyed king who had brought Wallace to this reckoning: the aging Edward of England, flanked by his Lord High Justiciar and the Prince of Wales, his golden crown a pointed contrast to the prisoner's coronal of laurel leaves-still powerful and very dangerous, at last poised to vent his years of anger and frustration on the man who, for so long, had thwarted his Scottish ambitions. The icy eyes scarcely flickered as he nodded for a clerk herald to read out the charges.

Conserving his strength for later, Arnault did not dwell on the details of the judicial proceedings that followed-perfunctory, in any case, the trial little more than an ugly mockery. No witnesses were called; no plea was entered; no defense was allowed. Wallace could only stand silent as a voluminous list of crimes was read out against him, beginning with the murder of Sir William Hazelrigg, the English Sheriff of Lanark, and ending with charges of treason against the king himself.

This last charge was the only one that Wallace even attempted to repudiate.

"Edward of England, you are no king of mine, nor ever were," he declared in ringing tones. "I never swore you fealty, and never did you homage. Kill me if you must, but be sure that of this charge, at least, I am wholly innocent!"

The statement earned the prisoner a heavy blow to the face from one of his gaolers. Pandemonium broke out as the court spectators roared and jeered, but died away as Edward raised a hand and the bailiffs of the court beat their staffs on the floor, demanding silence.

As the hubbub subsided, the king's justiciar rose from his chair to deliver the foregone verdict: that William Wallace of Elerslie, styled knight, was guilty of all charges, including treason, and would answer with his life.

Arnault's senses reeled with Wallace's as the stark finality of that verdict sank in, for the bailiff then p.r.o.nounced graphic details of that peculiarly English form of execution specifically devised for traitors-that the prisoner should be hanged by the neck and cut down while still living, his manhood struck from him, his bowels drawn from his body and burned before him, his head then to be struck from his body and displayed on Tower Bridge, as a warning to other would-be traitors against the king's grace. In final and emphatic reinforcement of the Scottish lesson, the body of the condemned was to be quartered and the parts sent north for display by the open sewers of cities in the land where Wallace had fought to free his country.

". and may G.o.d have mercy on your soul," the bailiff concluded, though with little conviction.

The traitor was then remanded to the place of execution at Smithfield Elms, where sentence of the court was to be carried out forthwith, before the setting of the sun.

Sick at heart, Arnault attended in spirit as Wallace was taken from the hall, bound hand and foot to a hurdle, and dragged through the streets of London. The circuitous journey took almost four hours, during which Arnault dipped in and out of trance to ensure that all was well with the Stone. The crowds lining the streets along the way swarmed close on either side, yelling obscenities and pelting the prisoner with garbage-for Wallace was deemed an enemy of England, and deserving of this fate.

The condemned man bore the abuse in stoic silence, his face a mask, eyes fixed on distances above the heads of the crowd, drawing solace from his faith and from a vague awareness that Arnault somehow was with him, as they neared the place of execution.

They had come within a quarter mile of the place when Arnault roused for his final preparations, the keekstane still closed in his right hand. He had been leaning with his head against the Stone-using it, in fact, like Jacob's pillow of old; and as he let his eyes open slightly, deliberately willing them not to focus, lest he lose his connection with Wallace, he was aware of Gaspar kneeling to his right, the two Columban brothers to his left.

"They're nearly there," he whispered.

As if from a distance, he was aware of Gaspar reaching above his head to take the Urim and Thummin from the altar, laying the stones over his eyes as he closed them again. Not lifting his head, he raised his right hand to press the keekstane to his brow, feeling the gentle pressure as the two Columban monks bound all three stones in place with fine linen bandages, reminiscent of the tomb bindings of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. So configured, the stones formed the upward-pointing triangle of the element of fire-fitting focus for channeling celestial fire, when the time came.

With physical sight thus closed away, Arnault sought and found the balance point among the stones'

affinities; and as Gaspar fastened the Breastplate around his neck, he felt himself sinking to an even deeper level of rapport, all of the stones now enhancing one another. But even so deep, a part of him yet remained in contact with his surroundings, as he felt hands set under his elbow to urge him upright.

"Sit up now," he heard Gaspar softly say.

He slowly sat, letting them guide him to turn and rise up on his knees, moving around to the north side of the Stone. Again facing the far southern reaches where Wallace lay, he settled back on his heels and laid both hands flat on the Stone-and flinched before the renewed flood of Wallace's perceptions, beneath a burning sun at Smithfield.

Little of visual input now, with his eyes bound blind, but that was as well, for his connection with Wallace had heightened all other senses. The shouts of the crowd soon yielded to the roaring of his blood in his ears as the rough bite of a rope began to choke out that other life-and the hangman's noose was only the beginning of a traitor's death.

But neither of them must falter now. It was time now to push the contact through, to be truly with Wallace to support him in these final minutes. Pain convulsed at Arnault's throat and chest as instinct bade the other fight to breathe, bound limbs going into spasms, and Arnault drove his will through the blood-haze of near-suffocation to make Wallace aware that he was not alone. Through growing panic and dimming awareness, as Wallace began that wavering slide into unconsciousness, Arnault made the connection-and began to share the other's pain.

Wallace was too near oblivion to respond save by a surge of anguished grat.i.tude, his body too focused on mere survival; but even that acknowledgment strengthened Arnault's own focus, though it also heightened his discomfort. Seconds of chest-searing pain and asphyxiation seemed to stretch into minutes, hours-then ceased with a jolt as Wallace was cut down.

Arnault found himself gasping for breath, even as his head cleared along with Wallace's, but he knew the respite would be brief, and was only prelude to far worse. As he braced himself, all too aware that the butchers soon would begin their work, he did his best to pour strength and courage into the man with whom he suffered, seeking to still the queasy start of visceral dread as, far to the south, the executioners showed Wallace their instruments.

The pain, when it came, was sudden and piercing, and far worse than ever Arnault could have imagined.

A hoa.r.s.e cry burst from his lips as he doubled over the ragged fire suddenly searing at his groin, and his head hit the edge of the Stone with enough force that a part of him worried he might have damaged the stones bound on his brow-though at least the bandages gave some protection against the blow. Though all instinct bade him clutch at his agony, he somehow managed-just-to keep his hands on the Stone; but gasping for breath, he nearly choked on the anguish of a second cut. The roar of Wallace's pain-and his!-vied with the roar of the crowd at Smithfield, and he greatly feared he could not hold the link.

But then there were hands on his shoulders-Gaspar's, and Fingon's and Ninian's-shoring up his strength.

Briefly his breathing grew easier, as they helped him dissipate the sharpest edge of the anguish; but then, without warning, new pain seared at his belly like a stream of molten metal burning out his entrails.

The agony of disembowelment was blinding in its intensity, dragging tortured senses toward physical shock and oblivion. Though Arnault fought against it, his body curled in on itself, his hands slipping toward the edge of the Stone, nails shattering as he clawed at the pain. But as Gaspar's strong hands on his pinned him to his purpose, keeping his hands flat in contact with the Stone as his pain hammered with each agonized heartbeat, Arnault slowly became aware of a Light, very far away, beginning to penetrate the shadow of impending death like the sun breaking radiantly through a storm.

It spilled down on Wallace from unfathomable heights, like the promise of welcome rain beginning to fall toward parched earth, and his failing spirit yearned instinctively toward it, more than ready to abandon the frail sh.e.l.l of flesh that now housed only pain and torture. In that instant, though it still was far away, Arnault felt a sudden stir of awakening power, like the rising of a storm.

It is finished! he sent to Wallace. The land has been served, the power awakened. Go, good and faithful servant, to claim the place awaiting you in the Light.

So saying, he drew apart from the dying man, catching the merest flash of the welcome axe descending to sever soul from body in a single b.l.o.o.d.y stroke. Like a floodgate bursting wide, the instant of Wallace's release set free a mighty rush of mystical energies.

The power crested and broke, sweeping northward over mountains and valleys like a tidal wave. Arnault fled before it in spirit as the torrent came thundering after him, for no mere mortal could channel its force, save by the virtue of the Stone itself, mediated through the High Priest's Breastplate.

He felt soul reunite with body in a solid thunk, there where he knelt before the Stone, and unerringly his bloodied fingers crawled to the dagger lying atop the Stone, closing around its hilt to lift it heavenward.

"Adonai, Chief of generous Chiefs!" he cried aloud. "Behold, Jacob's pillow: footstool of angels and seat of kings! The Uncrowned King comes to You in willing sacrifice, in faithful imitation of the holy Lamb.

Now may the covenant be renewed, whereby this realm of Alba became a dominion of Light. Of Your grace, fill again this Stone, to be once more the consecration seat of Scottish kings, and cornerstone of the Temple of Your New Jerusalem!"

Standing on guard outside, with Luc, Christoph, and Flannan, Torquil became suddenly aware of a profound and spontaneous quickening of his inner senses. The clouds veiling the darkening sky were suddenly rent asunder by a blast of silvery radiance as bright and unbridled as a lightning flash, cascading from the sky in a molten stream. The Stone of Destiny was the lodestone that drew it, and Torquil's heart surged in grateful joy as he realized Wallace's sacrifice was complete.

But even as he wavered between grief and exultation, there came a rumble deep in the bowels of the earth underfoot. A crack split the ground a few yards beyond the boundary line, emitting a sudden effusion of noisome black smoke. Warning cries went up from Luc and Christoph as more cracks appeared beyond their containment barrier, vomiting up twin streams of shadow.

The darkness spread like wildfire up and down the line created by the wards. A blast of wind stirred the trees as a monstrous form began to take shape in the midst of a noxious-looking cloud. Instinctively Torquil sketched the sign of the cross before him as he glimpsed that nightmare spirit that had pursued him the night before Falkirk.

Shadows burst from it, hurling themselves at the bulwark of the magical boundary before the four knights.

Torquil felt the impact deep in his soul as buffet after buffet reverberated on the s.h.i.+elding energy. Earth flew as the shadows scrabbled at the earth, endeavoring to burrow under the Templars' zone of protection, seeking to destroy the Stone of Destiny before it could be reempowered.

The attack intensified as darkness reared up to curtain the sky, as the demon-minions pressed all along the barrier. Even within the barrier, the air grew stiflingly cold, dense as water in the lungs. Torquil's ears began to pound, and he could feel his chest laboring under the effort of catching his breath.

The pressure mounted. Torquil felt a sudden, sharp pain in the back of his nose, followed by the copper-taste of blood in his throat and the trickle of blood on his lip. The pounding in his ears became a pulsating ache. Even as he covered his ears with his hands, half turning from the barrier, he saw Father Bertrand moving into the opening from the outer cave, raising his hands in invocation.

"Father of mercies, send down the help of Your angels, lest we perish in the midst of our enemies!" he cried.

The formula filled the attackers with snarling rage, but it also shattered Torquil's paralysis. Gulping breath, he darted to his sword in the defensive bulwark and thumped to his knees before it, laying his hands upon its cross-quillons as he flung back his head to shout out the motto of their Order: "Non n.o.bis, Domine!"

Without hesitation, the others did the same, even Bertrand laying his hands on Gaspar's sword, for Gaspar was engaged in guarding Arnault and the Stone. As each new voice added its strength to the exhortation, blue fire sizzled along each blade and into the ground, fortifying the bulwark, barring the way to the evil trying to pa.s.s by.

Within the chapel of the Stone, the walls of the cavern were heaving and contracting like the womb of a beast laboring to give birth. Reaching for the link to the power still swirling high above them-and still with eyes bound by Urim and Thummin and keekstane-Arnault had the impression that something evil was trying to tunnel its way in from outside, something spreading veins of shadow over the floor and walls, squirming toward the Stone like tentacular worms.

The source of that dark power lay far to the north, perched at the very edge of the land. In a flash of visionary insight, he knew its name, could see it in his mind's eye: a place called Burghead, an ancient citadel, a place of dark sacrifice, hulking on a bleak headland that overlooked the sea.

That knowledge gave new power. Knowing the source of the attack, Arnault now set about countering it-and the key lay already upon his breast, focused in the twelve mystical stones ranged across the very Breastplate of G.o.d's armor of Light. Drawing Fingon and Ninian to either side of him, he called upon names of divinity that had served when the Breastplate was fas.h.i.+oned by and for the High Priests of Israel, guardians and servitors of the first four Temples, solemnly intoning each name, letting its syllables vibrate in the sanct.i.ty of Sacrament and Stone, then drawing together and fusing the strands of Christian and Celtic tradition: "Elohim. Ee-he-vau-he. Adonai. Shaddai el Chai. Christus Dominus. an Ni Math."

The jewels of the Breastplate lit with unearthly radiance. Even behind the bindings of his eyes, Arnault could See their variegated fire filling the cavern. But through the oracular lenses of Urim and Thummin, he also became aware of four other puissant Presences manifesting in the midst of the cavern, winged like eagles and armored in light, each with a s.h.i.+ning star bound upon its n.o.ble brow.

Even in the confines of the cavern, their flowing hair was spangled with stars. The resplendence of their mere presence caused the shadows to recoil. Through a blur of dazzling colors, Arnault saw the newcomers sweep throughout the cave, scouring the walls with holy fire. Then came a final rending shriek from above, and all at once the air was free again, the angels gone.

Stunned, Arnault stared after them, not resisting as Fingon and Ninian stripped the bandages from his eyes and rescued the three stones, laying the keekstane in the depression in the center of the Stone and then positioning the Urim and Thummin to either side, in the same triangular configuration in which they had been bound to Arnault's brow. But Arnault's gaze had turned heavenward, where the ceiling of the cavern seemed to melt away to reveal the s.h.i.+ning storm of power now funneling down from above.

Reaching toward it with his right hand, Arnault lowered his left hand to set the point of the dagger into the hole in the keekstane, which rested atop the Stone of Destiny, both dagger and stone signed both with his own blood and that of the Uncrowned King. Then, like a woman drawing down thread from a spindle, he willed himself to be a living conduit, bridging the span between heaven and earth, opening himself to channel to the Stone, through blade and window, all the grace so hard won by the Uncrowned King.

The jewels of the Breastplate flared brighter as the power began to spiral downward, they and the Urim and Thummin and the keekstane buffering the force of the flow to levels endurable by mere human flesh, the pa.s.sage filling Arnault with such joy and peace as made all their sacrifices seem as nothing. Before his wondering gaze, the Stone of Destiny became once more a vessel of aery transparency. The power flowing smoothly through the hole in the keekstane was like clear, crystal water, building until the Stone was like a gla.s.s box filling up with scintillating radiance.

When the power was br.i.m.m.i.n.g, the flow subsided at last to a trickle. By the time the glow died in the jewels on the Breastplate, the Stone of Destiny was full of light, a living thing once again.

Outside, the dark ent.i.ties broke off their attack with a long, drawn-out shriek of denial, scattering like dry leaves before a gale. The last Torquil saw of them was a wild thras.h.i.+ng among the trees that died away into the distance like the echo of a storm. Breathing hard, he drew himself up, his sword still vibrating in his hands, wondering if he dared sheathe it. Slowly the others stirred, unbending cramped hands from their own blades, as pale and winded as Torquil. Father Bertrand stared wordlessly at his hands, wondering at what he had done. Christoph looked numb, Flannan disbelieving.

"I think it's over," Luc said, first to break the silence.

"Aye, it is," Torquil agreed, "but what about the Stone?"

The answer came from behind them.

"All is well. The Stone of Destiny lives."

All of them turned. Brother Ninian was standing in the mouth of the cavern entrance, Abbot Fingon leaning on his arm. Both monks wore expressions of mingled weariness and grat.i.tude.

"What about Arnault?" Torquil asked anxiously.

"Temporarily overcome by his spiritual exertions," Abbot Fingon replied. "Brother Gaspar is tending him.

A few hours' rest should restore him from his ordeal."

They took the precaution of maintaining their defense perimeter, but nightfall brought no sign of threat from any quarter. After a few hours, satisfied that all was well for the moment, Torquil ventured into the inner cavern, anxious for word of Arnault. He found the older knight reclining against the Stone, his Templar mantle pillowing his head and a cup of mulled wine in his fist.

"I confess I'm still feeling a bit shaky," he admitted, in response to Torquil's inquiry, "but a night's sleep will mend the rest of that."

"It must have been-unspeakable-the pain, I mean," Torquil said with a s.h.i.+ver.

Arnault briefly closed his eyes. "It wasn't only the pain that was unspeakable. The unspeakable is not always a bad thing. But as for that-let us simply say that, if ever I have say in the way I am to die, I pray that it may not be by hanging and drawing. On the other hand," he managed a faint smile, "the privilege of channeling the power of the Stone makes even the other seem a mere distraction. I only wish that Wallace could have shared that part of it-though perhaps he did, for the service he has rendered to the land, this day, will surely merit him a seat in Paradise."

Hesitantly Torquil laid his hand on the Stone, closing his eyes as his close-honed perceptions caught a hint of its renewed potency.

"We should move it as soon as possible," he said to Arnault, caressing the Stone as he looked up again.

"I agree. Have we horses, still, to do it?"

Torquil grimaced. "We have at least one less than when we started-and G.o.d knows how far any survivors ran. If you don't mind, however, I think I'll wait until morning, to go looking for them."