The Adept Book 3 The Templar Treasure (18 page)

“Oh, good, I see you’re ready,” she said quietly. “Come with me, please.”

Together the three men followed her down to the library, Peregrine bringing along his art satchel. As they entered, Sir John rose from a wing-back leather chair that gave almost the impression of a throne, his walking stick resting between his bare feet. Bright moonlight spilled through the French doors that led out to the garden, so brightly illuminating the library that Caitlin was able to put out her candle.

“Unless anyone has any questions, I think we can proceed to the temple,” Sir John said, his gaze sweeping the three of them. “Here at Oakwood, we ordinarily use temple names when we work, but in this instance, if no one has any objection, I suggest we simply use first names. Incidentally, my close friends generally call me ‘Gray’ rather than ‘John.’ Please feel free to do the same.”

So saying, he gestured for Caitlin to lead out into the moonlight, allowing his guests to fall in behind her before following.

They required no additional light to make their way across the lawns, heading once again toward the entrance to the maze. The close-clipped grass under their feet was cool and smooth; the night was balmy and almost warm. Beyond the darker bulk of the maze’s hedges, the roof of the gazebo gleamed silver in the moonlight.

“You’ll notice a difference in the maze when you walk it this time,” Caitlin said, turning to face them as she set one hand on the gate. “We can change the pattern by changing the configurations of the gates inside. Tonight’s pattern is for warding and protection, and to contain whatever power we may raise in the course of our work. You’ll utilize it best—and contribute most—if you simply maintain an inner stillness and let yourselves be carried along by the pattern as it builds. When we reach the center, Gray and I will enter the temple first. The three of you will follow when called, in order of seniority. The ritual framework will be quite clear. All you have to do is follow.”

Without further ado, she turned and opened the gate, herself leading their small procession through the twining corridors of leaves. The gravel underfoot was smooth, but necessitated going more slowly than when shod.

And the feel was, indeed, different from when they had walked the maze in the afternoon. Changing the pattern had the effect of opening a set of floodgates. Power seemed to be flowing out of the very ground, rising up in a mounting tide to gather in a shimmering cone high above their heads. With every step they proceeded deeper into the maze, the sense of power grew more intense.

Peregrine waited for the sense of bepuzzlement to recur—though all three of them wore their rings—but there was no such effect. Instead, linked in as he and his companions were with the keepers of the maze, Peregrine found his will creatively at one with theirs. His mind was clear, and his heart was at ease. By the time they reached the final turning, he was feeling ready, even eager, for the night’s work.

They emerged into the bright moonlight of the maze’s flagstoned center, Adam and his companions pausing just inside as Caitlin and Sir John proceeded up the steps into the gazebo. The moonlight set the white trellising aglow and silvered the rose leaves twined over it. The gazebo inside was lit by lanterns set along the inner perimeter at the four quarters. The table had been covered with a white cloth upon which burned two candles, one white and the other black, to either side of a red votive light set slightly back from them to form a triangle.

In silence Caitlin and Sir John took places before the table that had become a kind of altar, Peregrine realized. Distance masked what they said and their movements were shielded behind their bodies, but even so, it was not difficult to deduce that the two were establishing a formal focus to the working circle, according to their own tradition. After a moment, they turned as one and came to stand in the doorway of the gazebo, Sir John reaching for something hidden behind the frame of the doorway to his right. Moonlight glimmered like quicksilver on the blade of the slender sword that emerged in his hand, its point raising as his other hand beckoned Adam forward.

With a graceful inclination of his head, Adam moved forward to mount the four weathered steps, halting at the top as he was arrested at swordpoint, the tip of the blade lightly pressing at the hollow of his throat.

“Who comes?” Sir John demanded, loud enough that McLeod and Peregrine could hear the challenge quite clearly.

Lifting his eyes to meet the other’s unflinching gaze, Adam responded boldly, “Adam, Master of the Hunt and a servant of the Light, duly sworn.”

“Enter and be welcome in this company, Adam, Master of the Hunt and servant of the Light,” Sir John replied with a satisfied smile, lifting the swordpoint.

The warmth of his bidding was undeniable, as was Caitlin’s, as she laid a guiding hand on Adam’s sleeve. At the same time, she stretched up to kiss him on the mouth as she drew him into the gazebo. Her perfume mingled with that of the roses, heady and sweet, but even so, he felt the change of atmosphere as he passed into the further protection of their circle. None of it was totally unexpected except the sheer potency of what now surrounded him, underlined as she drew back and Sir John solemnly laid the sword across Adam’s two hands.

“You may admit your Huntsmen,” he said quietly.

With a slight bow, Adam turned to face outward again. The hilt of the sword tingled in his grasp, alive with energy focused through a different lens but for a common purpose. Directing that energy from his own perspective, Adam raised the sword before him and summoned McLeod with a glance. The inspector looked a little pale as he came across the short expanse of stone flags and mounted the four steps, to halt against the point of the sword at his throat.

“Who comes?” Adam demanded.

“Noel, a Huntsman and servant of the Light, duly sworn.”

With a nod, Adam raised the swordpoint and stepped aside.

“Enter and be welcome in this company, Noel, Huntsman and servant of the Light.”

As McLeod was admitted by Caitlin’s kiss, Adam likewise bade Peregrine come forward. The young artist looked very solemn and wide-eyed as he approached, his sketchbox in his left hand, but he mounted the four steps bravely. Still, he gasped as the swordpoint brought him up short.

“Who comes?”

“Peregrine, a Huntsman, and a servant of the Light, duly sworn,” Peregrine said, following the others’ pattern.

With a nod of approval, Adam raised the sword and beckoned Peregrine to pass.

“Enter and be welcome in this company, Peregrine, Huntsman and servant of the Light.”

He stood aside for Peregrine to be drawn inside by Caitlin, the sword still borne upright before him, then glanced askance at Sir John, for he sensed what should come next. At the general’s nod toward the open doorway, confirming his expectation, Adam drew the tip of the sword three times across the threshold they had just crossed, left to right, envisioning the sealing of the opening they had used. He was familiar with the symbolism, and heartened to feel the wall of power rise up in response to his command, as biddable as in his own temple.

When he had finished, he crouched briefly to lay the sword across the threshold to reinforce the imagery, turning then to where the others were gathering around the round table, which he now could see bore the Dundee ring and cross, the latter now with a length of silky black cord threaded through the ring at the top.

Wordlessly Sir John reached out to join hands with Caitlin and Adam, bidding them take McLeod’s and Peregrine’s hands.

“Before we begin, we’ll take a few minutes to center,” he said quietly.

Drawing a slow breath to continue what he had been doing since he entered the maze, Adam fixed his gaze on the red votive light flanked by the black and white candles—in Qabalistic terms, the Middle Pillar balanced between the twin pillars of Severity and Mercy. They all must strive for balance tonight, regardless of how each individual went about it. After a moment, the squeeze of Sir John’s hand on his left told Adam that they were ready to begin. As they dropped hands, Caitlin and Sir John turned briefly to begin pulling chairs closer, that had been set against the inside perimeter of the gazebo by each of the lanterns. A fifth chair had been added since their afternoon visit.

””Adam, I’ll suggest that you and Noel sit facing one another, here in front of the altar,” Sir John said, “I’ll back you—and Peregrine, why don’t you come around here, between them and the doorway, so you’ll have a clear view of their faces while you’re drawing? Caitlin will monitor the lot of us, from over behind Noel.”

Nodding, Adam helped adjust the chairs as their host had indicated, positioning himself and McLeod so that their knees were nearly touching. Peregrine settled in a chair to Adam’s right, with the shimmer of the gazebo doorway behind him, a sketch pad balanced on his knees and a handful of sharpened pencils in his left hand. Sir John was to Adam’s left and slightly behind him, Caitlin behind McLeod.

As Adam turned his attention to his Second, the inspector removed his aviator spectacles and set them on the altar table, then settled back into his chair and turned his gaze to Adam’s, briefly touching his sapphire to his lips before setting his hands on his thighs with a resigned sigh.

“Ready?” Adam asked quietly.

“Ready as I ever am.”

“Close your eyes, then, and take a deep breath, and be prepared to go deep on my signal.”

Without speaking, McLeod closed his eyes and inhaled to the depth of his lungs. As he began to exhale, Adam reached across and pressed his fingers lightly to his Second’s right wrist. McLeod’s breath became a sigh as he relaxed visibly in his chair, head lolling slightly forward on his chest.

“Good,” Adam murmured. “Now, breathe in and out again, and go deeper still . . . and once more. As deep as you can go and still hear my voice . . . and hear
only
my voice . . .”

So guided, and aided by long experience, McLeod settled readily into the desired level of trance—balanced, passive, receptive. That accomplished, Adam reached over to the altar table and took up the Templar cross, clasping it lightly between his two hands as he sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. He was now ready to embark upon his own part of the preparations, and the actual summoning of the former owner of the cross.

His first impression, as he sank into trance, was of the shimmering net of power woven over and above the precincts of the gazebo and the maze—star-white lines of singing energy whose remote echoes thrilled him with a sense of calm delight. Retreating deeper into trance, and trailing the strands of energy behind him, he found himself at the threshold of the Inner Planes. He could feel the warming presence of the cross between his palms, palpable as the glow from a bonfire, and he focused on that glow as he framed the words of a petitioning summons, speaking them aloud as well as in spirit, so that his companions’ intent might reinforce his own.

“John Grahame of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee and Grand Prior of Scotland. By this cross, token of your pledge to the Order of the Temple of Jerusalem, I charge you to hear me, and entreat you to respond.”

He repeated the invocation three times without gaining any response. Shifting his grasp to the cross’s cord, a few inches from where it passed through the ring on the top, he rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and let the cross dangle before his entranced gaze, also giving his companions a visual focus as he repeated the call, now drawing on the power of the maze to amplify his request. Minutes spun themselves out as he continued to broadcast his appeal until, out of the sidereal light of the Inner Planes, came the response he had been waiting for, strong in his mind.

Who calls?

Chapter Seventeen

WHO CALLS?

The question reverberated in the charged atmosphere of the gazebo, heralding a new presence among them. Cautious, lest his sense of relief dispel his focus, Adam kept his gaze fixed on the Templar cross.

“A Master of the Hunt desires contact with that one who once was John Grahame of Claverhouse. Have you a current incarnation?”

The response was a clear negative.

“Then my request presents you no peril,” Adam said. “By the power of the Light we both serve, I entreat you to come forth and speak with me. Grave matters concerning the Temple require resolution, and I would seek guidance from you, who last knew concerning these matters. A willing vessel stands ready to receive you as guest. He invites you to enter the temple of his body and speak with his voice. Will you enter?”

At once the spiritual presence manifested itself as a shimmering glow that flickered like heat lightning within the confines of the gazebo, reflecting from the edges of the Templar cross in Adam’s hand. With it came a simultaneous injunction that Adam should place the cross around McLeod’s neck.

Still balanced in trance, Adam complied, slipping the black cord over McLeod’s head so that the enamelled cross hung on his breast, briefly pressing a hand to McLeod’s forehead with whispered reinforcement to relax and offer no resistance. As he sat back again, his gaze fixed on McLeod’s face to watch for the shift, the shimmering flicker around them shrank briefly to a single, glowing point centered in the heart of the Templar cross, then expanded once again to envelop McLeod in a luminous aura.

Gradually the brightness of its essence merged with his living flesh and then faded. After a few more seconds, his grizzled head rolled back, then straightened up with a snap. When his eyelids lifted, the presence looking out of his eyes was no longer McLeod’s own.

“I was Grahame of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee,” said the presence now inhabiting McLeod’s body, the voice virile and resonant but lighter than McLeod’s own. “What need of the Temple impels you to summon me from contemplation of the Light?”

Drawing a deep breath, Adam kept eye contact with the eyes that no longer mirrored the soul of Noel McLeod.

“I require information about the Seal of Solomon,” he said. “The need is urgent.”

The blue eyes registered shock.

“By whose authority do you ask me this?”

“By my own authority, as Master of the Hunt and a justiciar of the Inner Planes,” Adam said. “He whose guest you are also represents the Law. One who disregards the Law and spurns the Light has stolen the Seal and taken the life of him who had its keeping. I am given to understand that great harm will be done if the thief discovers and releases what it guards. So I ask again,
have
you any knowledge of this artifact?”

“The secret of the Seal is known to me,” Dundee acknowledged, “but you do not know what you ask.” The borrowed voice held a note of sorrow. “I was the last of my Order to carry the burden of that knowledge, and through pride I failed to provide for its transmittal. Too late I waited, and took my secret to my grave—not only that which you seek now but many others besides. Now my failure holds me anchored to this present identity, forbidden to progress in my quest toward union with the Light, sentenced to observe it only from afar.”

There was grief and guilt in his revelation, a bleak resignation to what this tortured soul believed must be its fate. Failure there might have been, but Adam, well accustomed to diagnosing the ills attendant on the human psyche, suddenly wondered whether the spiritual restriction by which Dundee felt himself bound was self-imposed, the consequence of harsh self-judgment rather than any decree of Divine justice.

“What makes you so certain,” he asked softly, “that these ‘failings’ of yours are beyond redress? I submit to you, John Grahame of Claverhouse, that if you would be free to resume your quest toward the Light, you have only to find it within you to forgive yourself for what you see as these derelictions of duty.”

A grimace of anguished longing distorted McLeod’s passive face.

“How can I pardon the wrongs I have done, when my duty remains undischarged?”

“How else, except by proxy?” Adam countered calmly. “If you will share with me the secret of the Seal, I will promise to guard it as faithfully as you have done, using that knowledge only to safeguard what was given you in trust.”

“How can I dare what you ask, Master of the Hunt?” Dundee said. “I sense in you the tongue of good report, but I am oath-bound not to reveal the Seal’s secrets to anyone who is not a brother of the knightly Order which I was privileged to serve as Grand Prior.”

“Then rest easy, for I
am
of the Order,” Adam said. “More than three centuries before your birth, I swore obedience to him who then was Master of the Temple, and gave that life in fidelity to the Temple. By blood am I bound as well, through Sinclair ancestors who served the Temple. I pledge you, by that Light which you seek still to serve, that authority resides in me to receive your confidence in good faith. Since you cannot alone attain that which you most desire, I invite you to receive me as your spiritual successor; to pass your burden on to me, and let yourself be free.”

He fell silent and waited. The air was charged with tense expectancy. McLeod’s head turned from side to side, the alien intelligence scanning and assessing, then returned its gaze to Adam.

“Others are present, Master of the Hunt,” Dundee said. “Will you vouch for their integrity? For if I give this knowledge and they prove not worthy, I am forsworn, my soul condemned to further punishment for my failings.”

“All have made unreserved dedication to the Light, through many lives,” Adam returned quietly, knowing it was true. “Speak, I entreat you, before the vessel grows fatigued.”

Adam could see the indecision churning behind McLeod’s blue eyes, but then the grizzled head nodded.

“Very well, Master of the Hunt. I will put my trust in your pledge, and my soul in your keeping—and may you and yours share my fate, if ye be forsworn.”

“I accept that condition,” Adam said.

“Then hear what was told to me,” Dundee said, his tone gaining strength as his confidence grew. “The secret is said to date from the time of Solomon himself, who was our spiritual founder and father. Legend speaks of him rightly as a master magician, the master of men and demons. That reputation is well merited, for it was Solomon the Wise who, by his magical skills, subdued and captured the demons Gog and Magog and, in his wisdom, locked them away in a casket, which he buried deep in the cellars under the Temple in Jerusalem.”

Adam found himself nodding as he listened avidly. Off to his right, he could sense Peregrine sketching furiously. Sir John was a bulwark of reassuring strength behind him, and Caitlin had become almost psychically invisible.

“The Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70,” Dundee went on. “Centuries later, when Hugh de Payens and his fellow founders of our Order came to defend the Holy City, the King of Jerusalem gave them leave to make their headquarters in an old part of the ruined Temple thought to have been the previous location of King Solomon’s stables. In preparing the ground for rebuilding, the founders discovered a casket secreted in a hidden vault beneath the ruins—a casket fast-shut with a Seal that bore the imprinted symbols of Solomon, along with arcane wardings.

“Respecting the Seal of Solomon as a sign of warning, Hugh de Payens and his companions forbore even attempting to open the casket until they could learn more about it,” Dundee continued. “After nearly a century, their successors eventually found what they sought through an unlikely alliance with the mysterious Assassin-Lord known as the Old Man of the Mountain, whose mountain citadel retained records of ancient legends associated with the casket, which had been believed lost. Thus it was that they learned what the casket contained—and likewise, that the demons imprisoned in the casket could only be safely controlled by means of three ‘hallows’: Solomon’s Seal itself, Solomon’s Crown, and the Sceptre of King David.”

All at once Adam flashed on his dream the night after Nathan’s death—King Solomon enthroned, wearing the Crown and wielding the Seal and the Sceptre. The clues had been before him from the beginning, and he had not realized.

“The three hallows are of vital importance,” Dundee went on. “The imprint of the Seal is, of course, what binds the casket shut. Without it, the casket can neither be opened nor closed. But it
must
be used in conjunction with the Crown and the Sceptre. The Crown confers upon its wearer the wisdom to resist the madness of evil. The Sceptre, similarly, gives power to place that evil under restraint. If a man were to open the casket without the full protection of the hallows, the demons would escape and overwhelm him. Once free, there would be nothing to stop them from ravening across the land.”

The entity regarding Adam through McLeod’s eyes lifted a hand to lay across the Templar cross hanging on its host’s breast, the tone of the voice becoming more thoughtful.

“Our predecessors should have taken steps to destroy the demons, or at least ensure that they could never be released,” he continued. “Instead, they determined to reacquire the three hallows, against the time when it might be needful to turn the power of the demons against ,the Temple’s enemies. The hallows were recovered, one by one, and given into the custody of three trusted knights, bound by terrible oaths, with the Master retaining the guardianship of the casket. Only he and his closest officers knew the casket’s true secret, and the identities of those who held the hallows.

“When the Order withdrew from the Holy Land after the fall of Acre, they took the casket and the hallows with them to the Paris Temple and there guarded them until advance warning came of a planned suppression of the Order. Though tempted to unleash the demons against the Pope and the French King, who had betrayed the Order, the last Grand Master sent the casket and the hallows to Scotland for safety, where the casket was again hidden and the hallows dispersed to separate hiding places under separate guardianships. Much knowledge was lost in the centuries that followed, but the Crown eventually came into my keeping, along with the legend I have just conveyed to you.”

Adam gave an involuntary gasp and raised a hand to his forehead as Dundee said “you,” for with Dundee’s mention of the Crown had come a series of vivid images of it, and an insistent buzzing at the edge of his senses. It nagged at his concentration like the sound of conversation overheard but not quite decipherable in an adjoining room, but he could neither focus it nor make it go away, even when he shook his head in an attempt to clear it.

“Adam, what is it?” Sir John demanded, his strong hand clasping Adam’s shoulder from behind, on the left.

Increasingly disoriented, Adam sensed Peregrine also leaning forward in concern, and he clung to the lifeline of the general’s hand even as he made himself try to seek out that other’s presence.

I—don’t know,” he murmured. “Images, almost memories—something to do with the Crown. I can’t shut them out, but I can’t make them focus, either.”

Eagle-keen, Sir John shifted his attention to the presence housed in McLeod’s body.

“I speak as deputy for the Master of the Hunt,” he said. “I ask you to bear with us and abide a while longer. I believe this has bearing on your situation.”

Dundee was staring at Adam oddly, and gave a careful nod.

“I will abide. A friend desires to communicate.”

“What does that mean?” Peregrine whispered. “Adam isn’t a medium.”

“Are you?” Sir John demanded of Adam.

“I never
have
been.”

“Then perhaps this is a previous incarnation of your own attempting to surface,” Sir John said, watching him intently. “Are you aware of a particular past life with a pertinence to this situation?”

“No,” Adam whispered, shaking his head.

“Well, perhaps there hasn’t been a need for it to surface before now,” Sir John murmured. “I must confess, this is beyond
my
experience—a past personality desiring to communicate with a discarnate soul ensconced in a medium’s body. It’s obviously needed, though. Would you like me to guide you back to bring it in, if that’s what it is? Trying it solo could be a bit tricky, while still maintaining the Dundee contact.”

“Are you always such a master of understatement?” Adam breathed, glancing back at McLeod, through whose eyes he was being avidly watched. ‘ ‘You sound like a man with past experience at this sort of thing.”

“Far more than I would have liked,” Sir John replied, as he shifted forward to crouch beside Adam. “Will you trust me to take you back?”

“Certainly.”

“Thank you. I’m going to assume that you’ve keyed yourself to respond to the same cues that I watched you use on Noel,” the general said, laying a hand on Adam’s wrist. “Relax. Draw a deep breath and let it out—and when I touch your forehead, I want you to go very, very deep. Close your eyes and relax, and go deeper—now.”

Adam had already been at a working level of trance, which he had not left since their work began, but the elder Adept’s hand across his forehead plunged him as deep as he had ever gone for anyone else, even during therapy connected with his psychiatric training, so many years before. The vague rush of vertigo as the other took him deeper yet was a sensation he had learned to associate with sure and absolute control, and the certainty that Brigadier General Sir John Graham knew exactly what he was doing.