Chapter 12
The Canyon of the Crescent Moon
By the time they returned to the spot where the Brotherhood had ambushed the caravan, Frankland and the rest of the Nazis (including Victor) were gone, and John knew they'd never beat their opponents to the temple now.
That did not, of course, mean that they weren't going to go at all.
As they rode through the canyon on Lestrade's newly-acquired horses (pinched from the Nazis—along with several camels, despite Sherlock's indignation; "Got to pay my brother-in-law back for that car you blew up," Lestrade had said), John was able to steal any number of covert—and overt—glances at Sherlock.
The usually well-manicured archaeologist was showing definite signs of wear, including remainders of sand in his hair and hairline, an impressionistically-swirled layer of dirt on his finely-chiseled face, and an overall air of dusty film about his ever-loved Fedora and leather bomber jacket. His knuckles were scraped and crusted with dried blood, his fingernails were filthy, and his clothes were an utter wreck.
John really couldn't think when he'd seen anything more lovely.
To be sure, he could recall many a cleaner Sherlock to memory—the fading sunlight playing over that unforgettable profile, lighting the sea-clear eyes from within, limning the fringe of lashes with a glow like firelight—but those thoughts would threaten to bring John's bravado to a crashing halt. To think of that Sherlock, so vulnerable, so uncharacteristically open, at a time when he'd almost been lost, when their lives were still so very much at stake, was a risk John was unwilling to take just yet.
But he knew that if this little adventure ended with both of them safe and sound, things were going to have to change between the two of them. Sherlock wouldn't like it, he knew, but they were going to have to have…a little talk.
Sherlock's mouth had compressed into a rueful quirk. "Yes…what is it?"
John looked away, examining the canyon walls with interest. "Nothing. I was just…"
"Thinking. Very loudly."
"Sorry, was I interrupting a frolic in your mind-palace, then?" John knew it sounded horribly snarky, but Sherlock only grinned.
"Something like that." He glanced over. "Doesn't mean that I mind."
John grinned at the pommel of his horse's saddle. "Okay. Well. Then. Um…what were you thinking about, if I might ask?"
"The three tasks," Sherlock said promptly, now all business. "What are they?"
John held the reins with one hand as he pulled out the diary with the other and flipped through the pages, bracing the book awkwardly against his opposite arm. "Here," he finally said, handing it over. "They're on these pages."
Sherlock frowned, reading quickly, and John looked ahead to where the deep, water-etched corridor of sandstone suddenly opened up, facing a sheer cliff into which had been carved a most elegant and beautiful temple façade. "Sherlock," he whispered, and his companion looked up from the book.
They all halted their horses and sat in silence for a moment, taking in the sight and not even daring, at first, to breathe. Then Sherlock muttered, "Corinthian columns and fronton, but the elements above are…"
"Alexandrian," John supplied. "Hellenistic blended with Alexandrian, but look at the figures—"
"Oh, all right, we get it," Lestrade cut in. "Can you two curb the architectural enthusiasm for just a moment so we can get on with this?"
"Yes, of course," John said, dismounting. "Sorry."
He led the way into the temple, followed closely by Sherlock, Lestrade, and Stamford.
It took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the dark interior after the brightness of the desert sun, but within a few seconds, John could see that they were in a sort of atrium. A little beyond them was a large, round seal carved into the floor, and beyond that there appeared to be an opening to a larger chamber. The four men crept cautiously toward the chamber, peering around the edges of rocks until it became apparent that the chamber was indeed full of Nazis, along with their hired local Turkish thugs. Thankfully, they were all currently facing away from the opening where John and his companions crouched.
They inched slowly forward until they were close enough to overhear what was happening with Frankland and his men—or rather, they could have heard, if anyone had been saying anything. Frankland and Victor stood stock-still, facing some steps that led up to a narrow, dimly-lit passage beyond, which an apparently terrified Turk was now entering. He vanished beyond the opening of the passage, and for a moment, nothing happened except a slight breeze emanating from the passage itself.
Then a soft, insistent grinding noise, a scream, and something came rolling down the steps, past the startled Nazis, and into the path near where John and his companions crouched.
It was the man's head.
Mike turned away, his handkerchief pressed to his mouth, and was startled to see the barrel of a gun pointing to his forehead.
Victor felt a thrill of foreboding to see the four sand-tossed, rumpled men brought at gunpoint to where he and Frankland stood. It was apparent that Magnussen had not survived the encounter—for which Victor could not be remotely sorry—and he almost smiled to see that Sherlock had survived.
The look in Sherlock's eyes suggested it would not be a welcome sight, so he clamped his jaws shut and raised his chin, attempting to seem unconcerned that they had appeared just now, just as he was so close to truly finding, holding, bringing home the Holy Grail itself.
His eyes stayed fixed on Sherlock. "I never expected to see you again."
Sherlock was looking at Frankland, but said evenly, "I'm like a bad penny. I always turn up."
Frankland was smiling, but this time it was calculating rather than pliant. "Now, now, Doctor Schneider. Be kind to Dr. Holmes. He's going to recover the Grail for us."
Sherlock only smirked. "You can retrieve your own mythical playthings. I think I'll just stay right here, thanks."
Frankland tutted, still smiling. "Not ready to go down in history, then, Holmes? I'm disappointed."
"Go down in history as a Nazi stooge like you? No, thanks."
Victor knew this remark was directed at him as much as to Frankland.
"Nazis?" Frankland scoffed, eyes widening. "Is that the limit of your vision? The Nazis want to write themselves into the Grail legend and take on the world. Well, they're welcome. But I want the Grail itself. The cup that gives everlasting life! Hitler can have the world, but he can't take it with him. I'm going to be drinking my own health when he's gone the way of the Dodo." He drew his gun and leveled it at Sherlock. "The Grail is mine. And you're going to help me get it."
No. Victor's mind raced. If Frankland killed Sherlock…
"Killing me won't get you anywhere," Sherlock said.
"You know what, Dr. Holmes? You're right." He pivoted and before anyone could blink, shot John Watson in the torso. John flinched, a frown on this face, and crumpled slowly to the ground, a blossom of darkest red growing fast across his shirt.
Several things happened at once. Sherlock and Stamford lunged for John—Victor cried, "No!"—Lestrade gave a shout of rage. Frankland bellowed, "Get back!" to Victor and Lestrade, as Sherlock and Mike knelt on either side of John. Stamford folded his dust-covered jacket inside-out and pillowed John's head as Sherlock pulled open the bloodied shirt and revealed the wound. John was watching his face.
"How bad…?"
Sherlock was wide-eyed as he took a wadded-up scarf from Lestrade and pressed it to the gaping hole. "It's not bad," he said, but it was so clearly a lie that John closed his eyes and gave a small groan.
"Great."
"Don't worry, don't worry, I just…" Sherlock's face was as white as John's. He looked at Mike, but Mike was looking beyond him, toward Frankland. Sherlock whirled, his face suddenly contorted in rage as he faced Frankland. "You—"
Frankland spoke over him, the gun pointed directly at Sherlock's head. "You can't save him if you're dead."
Sherlock jaw worked furiously, and he fought for composure. His eyes darted across the bodies of two decapitated Turkish men, the sinister opening that lay beyond them, the guns of the Nazi soldiers surrounding their little tableau. He refused to spare even a glance at Victor.
Frankland gestured toward the dark hallway that led to the Grail. "The healing power of the Grail is the only thing that can save your lover now. It's time you asked yourself what you truly believe, Dr. Holmes."
Sherlock felt frozen in time—he had no option but to retrieve the Grail now. It was certainly hogwash that the thing could save John, even if it were to actually exist beyond that cobweb-draped corridor in front of him. But Frankland might allow them—would he?—to seek medical attention for John if he had the Grail in his hands. Or more likely, Sherlock could use it as a bargaining tool. There was no other way out of this but forward into the mystery.
There had been, too, a certain appeal in the notion of overcoming the mysterious challenges described in the diary, but this thought did not occur to him as he stepped forward and entered the dark stone passageway.
"The breath of God," he murmured to himself, reciting the first clue from the diary. "Only the penitent man may pass. Penitent. Penitent man…" What had those two unfortunate Turks done that was so lacking in penitence? What had they not done that they needed to do?
The walls were sandstone, with tiny, perfectly straight but oddly-placed gaps here and there—another on the floor—as if space had been deliberately left between them. He glanced about at the cobwebs fluttering from the walls, the pattern into which they had recently been—cut—
He heard a sound like faraway wind through the chinks in a window, felt a slight breeze stir across his face. "The penitent man kneels—"
He barely had time to crouch, tuck, roll forward, his well-timed dive helping him avoid not only a spinning sawblade slashing at neck-level but a gut-spilling one emerging from the crack in the floor as well. He rolled to his feet and glanced back, watching the blades continue to slash through the air, and reached for his whip, flicking and hitching it to the mechanism of one, which stopped both. He tied off the whip to keep the blades still, but visible.
"I'm through!" he shouted back toward the central chamber.
He thought he could hear vague cheering, but knew this was only the beginning.
The sudden image of John, white and small and bleeding out on the stone floor, filled his mind, and he stopped, pain overwhelming his senses for a moment, the thought of losing John—losing him now, just when they were on the verge of being together, truly together at last—paralyzing him, filling his head, his eyes, his ears, his veins.
NO.
It was the reason he didn't allow sentiment to muddy his mind; there was always the threat that it would overwhelm him. Like the cocaine he'd dallied with in the past, emotion threatened to envelop his mind, blunt his senses, fool him into a sense of false complacency and render him useless for brain-work—or anything else. And he'd done, he thought, a tolerably good job of squelching sentiment out of his daily life, of simply denying his heart its foolish indulgence, on the theory that cutting off its blood supply would help this part of him to simply shrivel up and drop off of him completely.
Until he'd met John, of course. He'd found his passion for John intolerable and intoxicating in equal measure at first, and he'd worked hard to maintain the pretense that he cared for John only as a loyal partner in work. And then had come their touches, their breathless kisses, their lovemaking, and his denial had crumbled away like so much dust in those moments, the moments when they'd confessed soft , inexorable truths, breathing their souls so gently across bared skin, moments that Sherlock came to live for. The moments that had made him human at last.
And yet. John had been constantly frustrated by Sherlock's focus on the work, his refusal to admit in less romantic moments that he needed John, that he loved John, to let John share in all of his life instead of only pieces, and this had driven the wedge between them—the wedge that Sherlock had hoped to dissolve by his own withdrawal from the arrangement. Perhaps not so human after all.
But no. That wasn't right.
Sherlock had known what he was refusing John, and it had terrified him to think of giving it. So he'd fled. He'd fled rather than face this exact fear that froze his steps in place now, on this path to the Grail, this fear of love and loss and ultimate vulnerability.
He'd taken the coward's path.
He heard his breath echo faintly in the gloomy corridor, and vowed to himself that he would admit this to John, that he would indeed get a chance to tell John. He must tell John. This was now necessary. John needed to know. So that they could move forward together. Always together.
He let out a long breath and continued forward to the next chamber.
In the main chamber, John's breathing was growing shallow, his pulse unsteady. Lestrade pressed the scarf to the wound, causing John to gasp but desperate to slow the bleeding. "You hang in there," he said to John, nodding. "Sherlock will find that Grail, you'll see. I mean…he's Sherlock, isn't he?" He gave John an encouraging smile, and received a weak nod in response.
John closed his eyes and breathed, "Sherlock."
Sherlock looked at the floor before him. Hexagonal stones covered every foot of space in front of him. He understood immediately: He had to step on the correct stones, or his foot—and the rest of him—would drop through the floor into a chasm below. He'd seen this sort of thing many times before—it was an old style of trap, and should be easy to negotiate.
"The word of God. Only in the footsteps of God will he proceed," he recited. "The footsteps of God…" His eyes darted over the letters carved into the stones. "The word of God. The name of God. Jehovah!"
He stepped forward and planted his foot on the nearest Latin letter "J."
His foot slipped through and suddenly he was up to his hip in the floor, foot dangling into unseen nothingness below. He froze, assessing. His other leg was still able to reach the solid rock he'd stepped from, and he gradually pulled and pushed himself back to a place of safety.
"Idiot!" he hissed, knocking at his temples in frustration. "In Latin, the name 'Jehovah' starts with 'I.'" He breathed for one second, then stepped onto the nearest "I."
The stone held.
He let out a breath and finished the word "E-H-O-V-A," and found himself safely on the other side. He could see light coming from the next chamber, just beyond. He trotted forward, heart pounding. He was almost there.
But instead of a chamber he found a chasm—a large, empty chasm—beyond which surely was the chamber that held the Grail. For this was the last challenge—the Path of God.
"Only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth," Sherlock whispered, frowning. He looked at the wall next to him, and sure enough, there was a waterspout in the shape of a lion's head.
"You have got to be joking," he said aloud to no one in particular. He scowled into the chasm. The distance was probably 30 yards or more—far too long for a leap, even if he'd been able to get a run at it.
"It's impossible! No one could leap this!" he shouted angrily.
Distantly, he could hear Lestrade's voice down the passage. "Sherlock! You've got to hurry! He's fading fast!"
Bloody hell.
Surely the designers of the challenges hadn't expected this to be a literal test of faith. For one moment, he imagined himself stepping serenely into the open air, strolling across the nothingness in zealous surety. The thought nearly made him laugh. He'd never been a man of faith—not in anything, really, except the work. His own brains and skills. And eventually, yes, John and his support, never asked for but always freely given. These were the things in which he had faith, these and nothing more. There would be no magical thinking carrying him across this abyss on the shoulders of angels.
Was that the sort of faith that was required, in order to reach the Grail?
But no. No. There had to be a way. The other clues had given him solid, real, tangible advice, advice which had brought him safely through the challenges. It wasn't likely—even possible—that this one was now requiring something nebulous and faith-based. It made no sense. There must be a way…must be…
He crouched, frowning into the chasm, at the opening beyond. If he were going to create an illusion of an unpassable gap, how would he do it? Unseen lines running across the chasm, perhaps? It seemed very Harry Houdini, and he could see no means for connecting them to the sandstone, but perhaps…
He reached down, meaning to feel his way across the sheer rock face beneath him, but his hand crumpled and his knuckles came away bloodied. There was…rock.
He put his hand out again, this time opened and flat, and felt—yes, it was rock, right in front of him. He screwed up his eyes, forcing his perspective to shift, and leaned this way and that. Ah—there it was. The rock had been cleverly carved and painted to look like the opposite cliff-wall. The image even shrank away in perfect forced perspective as he ran his eyes along the length of it. He'd never seen anything more clever.
He gathered up a handful of sand and scattered it forward, solidifying the path in front of him. It ran straight across the gap.
"Brilliant," he murmured, and stepped forward.
He was smiling now, buoyed by the thrill of success and the rash hope of saving John with what he might find in the cavern beyond. Hold on, John! He was practically running by the time he entered the small, domed chamber, and had not stopped to wonder why it was already lit from within until he emerged into the golden light.
The light came from candles, and the candles illuminated a long, curving shelf glittering with golden cups—chalices, flagons, and grails of every description. Sherlock sensed movement to his left and started, his hand reaching for the whip he no longer had with him.
The candles had presumably been lit by the man kneeling at an altar in the center of the room.
