pt. 10

Arkady stared impassively at the man across the desk, noting with detached interest as the sweat beaded on the man's brow. The frightened minion looked like a rat caught in a trap, an image not helped by the man's beady eyes and weak chin. "So the book has arrived at the Luna Foundation, has it? What about the armour?"

"It's been taken from its display case, Mr. Arkady. No one at the museum is talking, but it's almost a sure bet that the shield and chain-mail were sent to the island as well." Vincent McComb shifted nervously in his chair, frantically going over the details of his investigation in his mind. When Arkady had approached him to track down a shipment from the Middle East, McComb had been surprised. It had been flattering to think that a man of the wealth and position of Victor Arkady might need the services of a former Customs officer, especially one with a reputation as tarnished as McComb's. It had only been after he had reported that the Luna Foundation was in possession of the items that the real nature of his employer had come through. But by then it had been too late to back away, too late to do anything but try to comply with his new master's wishes.

"I don't suppose you have any contacts on Angel Island, do you Mr. McComb?" Arkady commented coldly.

"No sir, but I still have friends on the dock. I can find out if the people on the island come or go. Maybe I can cash in a few favors, get someone into the house who won't ask too many question_"

"That won't be necessary. I think that your services are no longer required, Mr. McComb. Please see my assistant on the way out of the building. She will see you are paid what you are owed." Akady turned away from his visitor, effectively ending the interview. McComb rose awkwardly and left as he had come in, trying not to break into a run as he reached the door.

Arkady waited until the relieved investigator had closed the door behind him, then tapped his intercom. Another man entered, absently brushing bits of lint from his coat. He was tall and lean, with cold eyes staring out of a acne-scarred face. The faint image of a scar was visible on his face, running from the corner of his right eye to his jaw. He glanced at his employer quizzically.

"Thomas, see to it that Mr. McComb gets everything that's coming to him." Arkady commanded, reaching for a file on his desk. "Oh, and Thomas_?"

"Yes sir?"

"Try to make it look like an accident this time. No sense in giving ourselves away too early in the game."

Thomas pulled a sleek stiletto blade from his jacket and gingerly tested its edge before sadly replacing it in it's sheath. "Yes, Mr. Arkady. What ever you say."

On Angel Island, the Legacy members were no further along in their investigation than when they had begun. Alex had taken the journal to scan its pages, reasoning that the computer could probably translate the book's Latin text faster than Derek. It had not been an easy argument to make. While Derek freely admitted his translating skills in Latin were not up to par, he had been surprisingly reluctant to relinquish the journal. Yet he had not been able to explain why it was so important that he read its entries. He had finally given in after Alex had agreed to allow him to see the translation as soon as it was completed. It had taken her the better part of the day, but the scanning portion of the task had finally been completed. Alex skimmed over the text as the computer began to print out its translation. She had randomly selected a few entries to run through the special program, arbitrarily selecting the last entries to translate first. The pages so far had made for interesting reading from a historical standpoint but had not as yet shed any light on the mysterious symbols on the armour and shield.

"Any luck?" Nick asked, walking past the hologram into the computer room.

"Not really. Mostly it's a journal of this particular Templar's life in Acre before the cities fall to the Muslims. Most of one section is just vignettes of life in the city during the siege. The last few days he seems to have developed this obsession with a woman he saw in the street and one of his fellow soldiers. He talks on and on about seeing this other man, Damien de Lancie, with this beautiful woman whose name he never mentions." Alex gently turned the journal's pages with gloved hands, her fingers gently touching the weathered parchment.

"Sounds like a major case of jealousy to me." Nick commented, skimming over the printed translation in front of him.

"I think it had as much to do with the culture of the Templars as with this particular man's obsession. I looked up a description of Templar life at the time and technically neither he nor his friend would have been allowed to be alone with a woman, not even their sisters or mothers. In their order, to have been alone with this woman, much less to speak to her, would have been a violation of their vows of chastity."

"You're kidding!" Nick replied, looking up at his friend in amazement.

"No, I'm serious. Many of the Templars held themselves to this very rigid code of conduct. Yet the author of this journal seems to have spent an inordinate amount of time looking for this woman and watching her and his fellow soldier. It's kind of strange, especially when you consider there was a large armed force just outside his gates trying to kill him and his order." Alex picked up the next page of the translation from the printer and read it carefully. "Oh, this is interesting!"

"What is?" Nick asked, taking the page from her hand.

"This entry was made three nights before the city fell. Laurent, that's the man writing the journal, was called to his commander's chamber for a special meeting. The summons comes from the Master of the order, who has also summoned several other young knights as well as men at arms."

"Does he say what it's about?"

"Yes. He gives a brief description of the event. Strange, there seems to be nothing else after that. It looks like this is the last entry in the journal. I wonder what happened after that meeting?"

Derek sat in the darkness, the photos Philip had taken of the old shield and armour held loosely in his hands. He stared at the symbols on both items intently, willing himself to see their pattern. But it was no use, nothing about the symbols from these grainy photos made any sense. He leaned his head back with a sigh and closed his eyes in fatigue. Suddenly, the vertigo which always preceded his visions struck, leaving him dazed. All around him, the sounds of the empty house changed. He could hear voices speaking in tongues not heard in centuries. Yet they were familiar somehow. He opened his eyes and looked around at the tableau in front of him. Men in battered leather and chain mail sat around a make-shift table, staring at something he could not see. Behind them, lined up against the wall, sergeants and men-at-arms, their faces weathered and worn clustered together nervously. On the far end of the table was a man whose face was hidden in the shadows of his cowl and bandages which covered him from cheek to chin. Beside him was a man in chain mail leaning exhaustedly against the table. The man looked up at him in desperation.

"Laurent? Did you hear me? We must move the armour tonight, lest those who traffic with the Devil find and solve its riddle."

Derek put out his hand to touch the bundle in front of him, seeing the links of chain mail a portion of a wooden shield uncovered before him. The hooded man leaned into the torch light, reaching out quickly to stop him. He grasped Derek's wrist in a firm grip then gently pushed him back. Derek looked up startled then gasped in surprise_

"Derek? Derek, are you all right?" Philip asked, gently shaking his friend awake.

"The eyes." Derek murmured, stunned. "The same eyes!"

"Whose eyes?" Philip replied, concerned.

"Violet eyes so deep you could drown in them. Why didn't I see it before? They have always been here, always guarded the secrets concealed by others." Derek looked up at the young priest with amazement. "Where are Alex and Nick?"

"In the lab. Derek, are you sure you're all right?"

"Yes, I said I was fine." Derek replied, waving off his young friend impatiently. "I must get that journal back. Somewhere in its pages, there must be a record of a meeting held to discuss hiding the armour and shield which held this great secret, whatever it is. I must read those pages." He rose from his chair and started off down the hall, the worried priest in tow.

"So what does he say about the meeting?" Nick asked, taking each translated page from Alex's hand as she finished with it.

"Looks like the Templar's Master decided to send the armour and shield away from Acre during the height of the siege, to protect it from forces he was afraid of. Laurent doesn't say what these forces were, only that his fellow Templar's were afraid for their secret." Alex read through the entry in silence, her expressive eyes wide as she reached the end. "Nick, look at this! Also present at the meeting where the man that Laurent was so obsessed with, Damien de Lancie and his younger brother Philip." Alex read through the entries quickly, handing each page back to her partner as she finished. "Something he discovered about them that night left him shaken."

"Well, he was pretty hot about this de Lancie guy making time with this woman, whoever she was. From these earlier entries, doesn't look like he had a much better opinion of the younger brother. This entry Derek translated says the younger brother, Philip, wore bandages across his face to cover some sort of burns. Listen to this entry:" Nick began to read from the page before him, giving voice to words written in another time and place by a fellow soldier." Philip's injuries keep his face hidden from all save his brother. He fights at his brother's side always, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. No one of us has ever looked into his eyes, yet many have reason to be thankful of his skill with the bow. Many of the enemy have reason to curse his name. Yet still, I am uneasy in the presence of such a mystery in human form." He put the page back on the desk, a bemused look on his face. "This guy's almost as paranoid as I am. This Philip de Lancie probably just had a complex about being scarred for life. I mean, those burns were probably pretty bad. Maybe he just didn't want anyone to pity him for what had happened. I could understand that."

"But that was not the real reason his face was concealed." Derek said, walking through the holograph with Philip at his heels. "He was hiding a more important secret than the condition of his face."

"Which was?" Alex asked, glancing quizzically at Philip.

"I believe that Philip de Lancie was not Damien de Lancie's brother but his sister. A woman in the garb of a young nobleman, sent along with her brother to insure the survival of the clues imbedded in that armour and shield, clues to a treasure the Templars had found and spirited out of the Holy Land for safe keeping. But taken to where? That is the puzzle we must solve."

"Wait, Derek." Nick interrupted, his eyes reflecting the confusion felt by the others. "Isn't that a hell of an assumption to make, that just because some guy had his face hidden by bandages he wasn't really a guy at all?"

"Philip de Lancie had violet eyes, just like the woman that Laurent Dubois was obsessed with, the woman he saw with Damien de Lancie in the streets of Acre. There could not be two pairs of deep violet eyes in that God cursed city on that day."

"How do you know that?" Alex asked gently, laying a hand on her friend's arm. "There's no description of the man's eyes in any of these pages we've translated. How can you know they were the same as the woman in the street?"

Derek stared at his team in frustration. "I know what I saw!" he exclaimed, then stared down at the table in sudden confusion. "I saw_in my visions?" He saw the look of concern that passed between his friends and smiled ruefully. "That sounds quite mad, doesn't it?"

"You're not mad. A bit difficult sometimes, but definitely not mad." Philip replied, poking at the piles of papers on the table in front of him. He lifted one of the translated entries and read through it quickly. "Alex, Nick, look at this."

Alex took the page from his and scanned it's lines. "This is the rest of the entry from the night before the fall of the city. The computer hadn't finished translating this one when I read the first part. In it, Laurent Dubois talks about preparing a shipment of artifacts to be sent to his father's home in France in the care of his fellow Templars and of his shock to discover that one of his brothers at arms was in fact a woman!" Alex quickly shuffled through the rest of the pages, arranging them by date of entry. "Look here's another one. This entry is dated the day the city fell. I could have sworn that other entry was the last one in the book."

"No, that's not possible. I _he died at the walls of the city. He couldn't have made an entry in his journal on that day." Derek pulled on gloves and lifted the ancient text onto the table, carefully opening the tome to the last entry. "See, this handwriting is different from that which made the entries that came before it."

"What does the entry say?" Nick asked, leaning over the table to get a better look at the translation.

"The city has fallen, but the secret is safe. The keys to the puzzle sail onward to another shore and we remain behind to bury the dead. That which was hidden within the walls of the Temple of Solomon marches on to its new home and we remain to comfort the dying. Those of the old faith stand to protect those of the new. Soon it will be our time to return to the mists, to wait again for the time when we will be called to arms again, my Lord of Light and his Lady of the Moon. We will come again." Alex read the words aloud, feeling their magic as she spoke. Looking up, she could see that her friends were as intrigued by the simple phrases as she was. All, that is, except for Derek.

Derek felt the words flow through him like water, washing away the vestiges of confusion and anger. He could feel the vertigo that proceeded his vision yet was not troubled by it as he had been before. The walls of the mansion disappeared, melting into visions of bright sunlight, high walls and a desperate battle. He could feel a tremendous pain in his side and looking down, saw the bright blood flowing from a wound in his belly. A dead Saracen lay sprawled to one side of him, a sword impaling his body. Derek looked up to see a figure standing over him, a figure with deep violet eyes.

"Lay still, mon amie." Her voice came from everywhere at once, blocking out the sounds of the desperate struggles around him. "You are badly wounded."

"I am_ dying." He replied, reaching out a bloodied hand to the specter standing over him. "Who_?"

"My name has changed as has the world. But for now I am Marianne. I wish there could have been more time. Perhaps in another lifetime_" She gently pushed him back, removing his chain mail shirt and coif and covering him with his own cloak. None of the combatants who raged around them took the slightest notice of them, as though they existed apart from the world around them. The woman gently smoothed his hair back from his forehead, her fingers cool against his sun burnt skin. She brushed a kiss across him mouth and he was surrounded by the scent of wild roses. The pain receded as the darkness closed around him, yet he could still hear her voice, soft and sweet and very far away. "Another time, chevalier. The prize is safe. You and your brothers have saved it. If you remember nothing else in your next spin of the wheel, remember that. And remember me. I will always remember you. Nothing is forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten."

"Derek?" Philip knelt beside his friend in concern. Derek's eyes were fixed on some distant point, seeing something no one else could see. They had all seen him have one of his precognitive visions before, but none could remember it overwhelming him as this was. Slowly, their precept's eyes focused on the young priest before him.

"Something was sent to his father, to Laurent Dubois's father, some artifact that the Templars were willing to guard with their lives. A secret they dared not write openly about for fear that others would steal it away from them. That is what we must find and protect from Arkady. Something that the Templars found in the Temple of Solomon when they first made their bed in Jerusalem." Derek looked across at Alex, trying to focus on the present and not the past. "Alex, find out what happened to the Dubois family holdings. I doubt that what we seek would still be in France, not after the arrests and destruction of the Templar order. But it's as good a place to start as any."

Arkady looked up as his employee entered the room. "Well, what did you find out?"

Thomas stopped in front of the desk and looked down at his employer. "A package was delivered to the Luna Foundation a few days ago. No one at the messenger service that delivered it could seem to remember where the package had come from originally. But it was about the size of a large book."

"So, the Legacy has found the journal, have they? Well, it won't take them long to translate it. Then they'll run off to secure the "item" and we'll be right behind them." Arkady smiled, a cruel cold smile that frightened even the hardened mercenary before him. "Soon, everything I've ever wanted will be mine and the irony will be that it will be the Legacy who provides it."