FORTY-FOUR

 

Fiona kicked her legs and wriggled the rest of the way onto the ledge. From below, it had not been visible, but now she could see that it was the bottom landing of a narrow, spiral staircase that corkscrewed around the shaft.

As soon as she was up, she squirmed around so she could see the chamber below. Pierce was gone, driven away from the center by the advancing vipers. “Uncle George!”

“Fi. You’ve got to find a way out.” Pierce’s voice was faint, muffled by distance and the acoustics of the chamber. “Tell Cintia to contact Erik. You’ve got to find the Ark. And save Gus.”

She beat her fists against the stone landing, feeling helpless. There was no loose earth with which to form a golem, and she couldn’t think of any other way in which her limited ability with the Mother Tongue might be useful.

What she needed was a ladder or some rope.

Stairs, she thought. They had to lead somewhere, and maybe at the top, she would find something…anything…that might help Pierce escape the snake pit.

She scrambled to her feet and started ascending, bounding up three steps at a time until the burning in her legs slowed her to single steps. She kept going, refusing to stop for breath, circling around the stairwell again and again, until she started to feel dizzy. Even then she did not stop until, with no warning whatsoever, the stairs ended at a balcony that almost ringed the vertical shaft.

The surrounding walls were smooth, save for a protruding square of rock, about two feet on each side, framing a carved Templar cross, on the opposite side of the balcony. There seemed to be no reason for it to be there, so Fiona figured it was either the release mechanism for a secret door or a booby trap.

One hardly seemed worse than the other, so she ran to it and slammed both her fists against it.

The balcony lurched beneath her, then knocked her down.

“Damn it,” she muttered, and thought, Booby trap.

But then the floor stopped moving, and she saw that the stone block with the cross was now a good eight feet higher than it had been, and positioned right above an arched doorway leading out of the shaft.

Without pausing to consider what new perils might await her on the other side, Fiona charged through the door and found herself in another round, vaulted chamber. The walls were adorned with painted frescoes. The scenes were reminiscent of stained glass windows in a cathedral or Byzantine icons, though she didn’t give the artwork more than a cursory glance. At the opposite end, there was a block of carved stone, about waist high and twice as long, and behind that, several long tapestries covering the wall—black on top, white on the bottom, with red Templar crosses in the center.

The room was a chapel, a secret underground church that probably dated back to the crusades. It was no doubt built by the men who had discovered, and removed, the Ark of the Covenant.

No ladders, but the tapestries gave her an idea. Each was long enough to reach down to the floor of the snake pit.

She ran down the length of the chamber, circled the altar, and grabbed one of the enormous woven panels. She half-expected it to crumble to dust in her hands, but the dry environment of the sealed chapel had preserved the tapestry well. It tore free of the hooks from which it was suspended, but its unexpected weight bore her to the ground. She struggled to get her arms under it, but the woven fabric was so heavy, she could only lift one end.

The removal of the tapestry revealed another doorway, leading out of the apse and perhaps to another stairwell or secret passage. It probably led all the way to the surface, a hidden entrance somewhere on Mount Nebo, but Fiona paid no attention to the possible exit. Instead, she pulled the heavy tapestry behind her, heading for the door back to the staircase.

The woven curtain snagged on the rough floor, pulling her off balance once more. The utter futility of what she was trying to do crashed down on her like a wave. If she could not even lift the tapestry, how would she ever be able to hold it in place while Pierce climbed up? Was he even still alive?

She fell to her knees, sobbing.

“Fi!”

Pierce was standing in the doorway, breathing hard but smiling. She shoved the tapestry away, bounded across the intervening distance, and threw her arms around him.

“You made it! How?”

“The stairs came down. I thought you did that.”

Fiona realized that she actually had. The mechanism outside the chapel had done more than just reveal the hidden entrance. It had lowered the entire stairwell down eight feet to the floor of the lower chamber. She had saved Pierce without even realizing it.

She looked past him to the stairwell. “Can snakes climb steps?”

Pierce chuckled. “Maybe, but I think we’re safe for a little while.” He gave her a squeeze, then released her and moved into the chapel, scrutinizing the frescos.

Now that there was time for her to look at them, Fiona realized that she was looking at a visual record of the chamber’s discovery. The paintings on the right side showed an artist’s rendering of a man in a rough-looking garment with his eyes raised heavenward as if in prayer. Then the same man journeying into the desert at the head of a procession of men carrying large bundles. In the final scene, they were setting up what looked like a circus tent in a cave. The panels on the left side showed the story of how the Templars found the secret chamber.

Pierce stared at the last panel on the left, which depicted the same scene as on the opposite side, but with the addition of Templars kneeling before their swords, which were held in front of them like crosses. “This is where they found the Holy Tabernacle of Meeting.”

“It doesn’t show what happened next,” Fiona said. “Where did they take it?”

Pierce moved back to the first panel, which showed priests and Templar scholars perusing scrolls. “They found something that told them where to look. Maybe the same scrolls we read.” He moved to the next panel, which showed Templars, some on horseback, others on foot, carrying what looked like short walking sticks. One of the men was kneeling, with his cane lying on the ground before him, pointing toward the rising sun.

Pierce tapped the picture. “That rod, it’s too short to be a walking staff. I think it’s a measuring stick. Exactly one Sacred cubit. They calculated the correct length six hundred years before Isaac Newton.”

“How?”

Pierce shook his head. “There are several references to measuring the Temple in the Bible—the Revelation, the prophecies of Ezekiel and Zechariah. Maybe there was something left of the old Temple in Jerusalem that they were able to use as a baseline.”

He moved to the last panel, which showed the warrior-monks ringing the Tabernacle, praying before their upraised swords. “If they’d had the Tabernacle, they would have been able to measure it and work it out backward…” His voice trailed off, and then he turned to Fiona, his eyes dancing with excitement. “I know where the Ark is.”