3- The Guardians

Lara put on her T-shirt and contemplated her tired face in the small mirror. The intrusion of the night had left her feeling pensive, she hadn't been able to close her eyes for the rest of the night.

She replayed the events in her head over and over again, focusing on trying to remember the smallest detail, but she hadn't been able to distinguish anything in the dark.

When she went downstairs, she realised the building was silent. After a quick glance at the counter, she understood the man that was there the day before, the manager she imagined, was not there. She took the opportunity to take a look at the key board, stuck behind the reception desk. All the other keys were there, except for her own bedroom keys, which confirmed her doubts. No clues on this side.

She walked into the entrance hall, and out of the corner of her eye she saw a small table in the middle of the other empty tables in the dining room. On it were a plate filled with a few croissants, a glass of orange juice, and a fruit basket. She couldn't help but smile. She stepped forward to take a fruit and a croissant, drank the glass of orange juice, and turned around quickly. She pushed the door open and finally got out of the Inn.

The sky was a deep, bright blue and the sun was just starting to shine from behind the mountains, but it was a cool morning.

She put on her thick and short coat, perfectly matching her dark mesh trousers in the same tones, and pulled the zipper up to her neck, her lungs filling in with fresh air.

As the man had told her the day before, she branched off to her left to find the path leading up to the castle. She then entered a narrow alleyway with damp-stained houses and decrepit facades. She passed an old lady on her way, who watched her from top to bottom, with a distrustful look, to which Lara tried to respond with a reassuring smile. Seeing that it had no effect, she went on her way without saying anything. Very often, as in many villages like this, people would stare at strangers and talk. She realised that she would not be an exception to the rule.

After a few dozen metres the street stopped, giving way to a small hiking path that went up along the cliff, winding between the pines and other trees. When she looked up, Lara saw the tower's top that was a few hundred metres above her, perched on its steep cliff.

It did not take more than twenty minutes to walk up the hiking trail, which was largely laid out to facilitate access for tourists on busy days. At first, she found herself in a thick little wood, with the trees close together, but as she climbed she then found herself in sparse nature, before arriving on a steep and rocky path. After a final climb, Lara finally saw the end of the route.

A real walk in the park

The path led to a wide, hilly plateau with tall green grass. The icy north wind rose abruptly from the moment she passed the ridge, twirling her locks of hair in the air. It swept across the expanse of the pastures, which were undulating like waves from its force. The cold, which fell suddenly with altitude, penetrated her to the bones, she couldn't help tucking her neck into her coat.

She remained still for a moment to admire the view in front of her: a little further down on the left stood the ruins of the old Cathar castle, which scattered in crumbs along the steep rock, perched above the void. A small mountain lake had formed on the right side of the building, wedged between greyish rocks.

Back then I would have liked to live in such a place, somehow

She took a deep breath and let the fresh air in. Over her glasses, she looked around at the deserted place. Only the whistling of the wind and a few cows and their bells, grouped together on a mountainside a little further away, could be heard.

She began her descent towards the castle, or at least what was left of it: only the remnants of a few surrounding walls and three turrets which followed one another in a chain along the crest still remained. The path had almost disappeared, deserted by tourists at this time of the year, she followed the gentle slope until she reached the first pieces of collapsed walls.

She passed through what looked like the remains of an ancient arch, undoubtedly the old gateway to the fortress. She made her way through the other debris of the walls, which had now almost completely disappeared. The castle itself was relatively small, so she quickly arrived on the other side of the enclosure, casting piercing glances all around her, on the lookout for the slightest detail that might be able to catch her attention.

She travelled in long strides for the last few metres, slaloming between the stone blocks, and finally arrived at the end of the site, where the fortress had been built hanging over the void, as if ready to topple over at any moment. The adventurer took a few more steps, on her guard, before leaning forward in the hope of seeing something. There, the space opened up into a spectacular emptiness, her heart was taken by a few more palpitations when another gust of wind hit her in the face. She took a few steps backwards, hands on her hips. Her gaze wandered for a few seconds over the landscape around her ; strangely enough, a feeling of freedom, grandeur and calm washed over her at that very moment, which hadn't happened in a long time.

Returning to reality, she turned around and decided to retrace her steps, less hastily this time. She went down from the small platform and, inwardly, decided to be logical and start searching the main tower, which in this case was the closest to where she was standing.

She entered the building without knowing where to look first. It was a simple, square room, whose floor had completely disappeared over time, now replaced by dry reddish earth. The tower was not very tall, no more than ten metres high, and opened into an open sky. Here, the wind whistled strongly against the still resisting walls and the openings that corresponded to the old windows.

At first, Lara observed the earthy soil, but soon realised that she would not get anything out of it: no traces appeared in the dust and small stones, except those she had just left herself. Similarly, when she took a closer look at the walls, she detected no sign that the room might have concealed a secret passage or any other hidden room. As a precaution, and from experience, she still took the time to make a more thorough tour of the space, leaning her hands here and there on certain strategically placed stones. While her hand was resting on an umpteenth stone, it moved under her fingers. The adventurer suddenly turned her head, alert. Holding her breath, she observed the whole piece, ready to jump at the slightest change it could have created. After a few minutes of waiting, however, she had to face the facts. Nothing had moved.

Dead end

Disappointed, she turned her heels and walked out of the turret. On the doorstep she took out Von Croy's little notebook, flipped through the annotated pages again, but it was obvious that no one had set foot in here for a while, and that Werner had come to the same conclusion as her.

She then decided to return directly to the East turret, located opposite the cliff, on the side of the lake, thus avoiding the last tower, the one that stood in the centre of the castle but of which there was almost nothing left, except a collapsed wall.

At first, she slowly walked around the turret, scrutinising the damaged stone with a keen eye. Still partly standing, some of the blocks had clearly come loose before landing a little further down in the clear water. Some climbing plants were resisting, perched here and there on the wall. Her boots squeaked on the dry earth and the grass that caressed her legs. And after a few steps she stopped again, stuck in her path. She couldn't complete her turn without finding her feet in the water, but she soon noticed that the lake, although small in size, plunged straight down. Once again, she looked around, almost annoyed.

I don't understand

The waters of the lake seemed to come alive, swept by a new gust of wind, as if taunting her. The young woman ran a hand through her hair, pushing back the locks that were falling into her face. She suddenly turned around, alerted by a suspicious noise in her back, the muffled sound of a stone falling on the earthy ground. With her hand on her gun and thinking back of the events of the night before, she took a step back, hiding behind the wall, and leaning slightly forward to catch a glimpse of the back of the turret, but the space remained empty. The silence fell again.

It was when she lowered her head to massage her tired neck she saw a mix of earth and herb traces beneath her own feet. She squatted down, pushing away the herbs that were blocking her view with one hand and caressing the overturned earth with her fingertips.

Foot prints

Indeed, by observing a little more closely, she realised that footprints were running along the decrepit wall, hidden by a fallen tree trunk and by the small heather bushes. They were not very deep, and the adventuress had almost missed them.

However, after a few more seconds of observation, the young woman realised very quickly that there were no more than two or three partially erased footprints. A feeling of doubt crossed her when she imagined that they were probably no more than old tourist tracks.

Disappointed, the young woman got up and retraced her footsteps, returning to the entrance of the small tower. This time, she found herself in a very small round tower, typical of the defence turrets of ancient French fortresses.

Let's try this way

Here too, time had left its mark everywhere: unlike the other tower, part of the ground still existed, partly covered by grass and earth. The morning sun was finally shining, shaping itself exactly in the axis of the only stone wall still standing. Lara made out the lake behind it a few meters away and then, far beyond it, the mountain that climbed infinitely towards the deep blue sky.

When she lowered her gaze again, finding herself facing the worn stone once again, she closely inspected the floor, which suddenly caught her attention. Indeed, on closer inspection, she did not necessarily see footprints as on the tower's outside, but the floor had a weird appearance at the back of the room. The adventuress frowned and walked a few steps closer before crouching down. Here, the floor seemed far too clean and neat for a stone that had withstood all the seasons of the last centuries, as if someone had cleaned up and then covered it up by throwing a few handfuls of earth on it again.

Her heart suddenly jumped in her chest when her gaze intercepted a detail a few centimetres away from her hand. Unsure, she leaned slightly forward and bit her lower lip, her frown deepening. Tiny, almost invisible in the hollow of the rock carved by time, there was an engraved symbol. A symbol which she recognised immediately after seeing it in Werner's notebook.

The Cross... or whatever it is

A strong feeling of excitement suddenly rose in her. Her first reflex was to caress the symbol with her fingertips and press it, but nothing happened. Standing back a little, she looked at the rock around the symbol. After long minutes of observation, she finally stood up, hands on her hips. She took some steps backwards to give herself a wider view, and it jumped out at her that the space around the symbol was strangely square. A line was drawn in the pavement, partly covered with earth and pebbles, as if someone had tried to hide it.

Lara crouched down again, and began to scrape the earth with her nails, following the line that was drawn in the ground. As she did so, a clear outline appeared, forming a large square around the cross.

A hatch!

The adventuress bent down and grabbed the iron bar she had slipped into her backpack the day before, among other things.

Luckily I'm prepared for everything

With a sure gesture, she placed the crowbar between the two rocks, in the slit. Taking a breath, she pushed down on the bar, which squeaked against the rock. The slab moved very slightly, but did not come off completely. Lara released the bar for a fraction of a second to catch her breath, and then gave a new impulse, pushing the bar a little lower to the ground.

The stone lifted up with disconcerting ease this time.

And here we go

The young woman stood up, triumphant, but nevertheless overcome by doubt: although she herself had no difficulty in accessing the hatch, she was obviously not the only one who's had access to it, and this long after Werner's visit here, the tracks were far too fresh and far too recent. She couldn't help but cast another suspicious glance over her shoulder, before crouching down to push the slab aside.

A gaping hole, plunged into darkness, revealed itself beneath her. When she leaned forward a little, she was convinced at first that it was some kind of well, but then Lara realised that she could see the rocky ground a few metres below. As a precaution, she took a torch out of her backpack and uncaptured it before throwing it into the hole.

The light revealed a small cavity dug into the rock. With agility, Lara let herself slide forward and in less than a second she found herself suspended on the edge of the rock, ready to land in the space she had just freed.

She let herself fall gently, grabbed the torch and stood up, her eyes alert. After inspection, the place where she was standing was nothing out of the ordinary, it was only a sort of airlock, sunk into the rock. When she turned around, she found herself facing a simple staircase carved out of the rock, which was sinking into the depths of the earth.

She went down the passage, one foot after the other following the furrow in the staircase, lit only by the light of the little torch she was waving in front of her. After several, seemingly endless minutes, the staircase finally stopped, its opening abruptly plunging into the darkness of the underground rock. When Lara finally reached the bottom, she felt her heart beat faster against her rib cage, her breathing quickened. As she held the torch to light the way around her, it began to weaken in a crackling sound. The young woman grabbed another one, which lit up like a camera flash when she activated it, the bright light reflecting off the rock around her. The space in front of her was much larger, with a much higher ceiling, like an underground cave thousands of years old. From the humidity that filled the air and the drops that sprinkled the walls, the adventurer deduced that it must have been somewhere beneath the lake.

She walked cautiously into the vast room at wolf's pace, trying to catch the slightest noise, the slightest movement, but the darkness seemed to have closed in on her.

After about thirty metres, however, she understood this was another cavity, this time much bigger than the previous one given the noise and echo of her own footsteps on the rock. She tried to direct her torch upwards to see the ceiling, but nothing helped, the little light she had seemed to be absorbed by the ambient darkness. Only a few stalactites were pointing at her, threatening her with their limestone peaks. The ground became slippery in places, undulating under the weight of thousands of years of humidity.

The light from the torch suddenly reflected on the back wall. At first sight Lara came upon what looked like imposing columns resting on wide marble bases. After a few seconds, until her eyes adjusted and she had time to take a new torch, she realised that the columns were in fact legs, embedded in what looked like knitted ribs and waders.

The knights

She first went to her left, along the wall and the feet of the statues. At the end of the fourth, however, she found herself stuck against the cave's twisted wall, she couldn't go any further. So she went in the other direction this time, taking several metres of distance to visualise the façade that slowly appeared from out her torch's light. The knights contemplated her from their full height, stuck in their rock façade : their faces impassive, they held their swords firmly pointing downwards. Lara recognised the Cathar Cross on their toga.

After a few moments, she realised she had reached the level of the structure's main arch, between the eight statues. At this point, the wall against the rock was relatively smooth, devoid of any decoration except for a few marbling in the stone itself. As in Werner's sketch, a great arch surmounted the whole thing, dominating the space. Above it, the adventuress saw the engraved letters corresponding to the Latin quotation written in Werner's diary. But on closer inspection, this was only a detail of the whole, her attention was drawn to the wall in front of her, which simply looked like a door.

The young woman frowned, in a state of reflection. She turned her gaze first to the left and then to the right, carefully observing the structure that contemplated her from its thousands of years.

If there's a gate, there's an opening system

For the next two hours, she went around the entire cave, scrutinising every nook, every cavity, every relief in search of the slightest clue. The air was humid and heavy, like after a summer storm.

On several occasions, stress took hold of her: alone, plunged into the darkness of this immense empty space, she found it very difficult to concentrate, disturbed by the strong beating of her own heart against her ribs and the blood pulsing in her temples. She couldn't help being on her guard, convinced that she was being followed or that an enemy was coming. She stopped dead in her tracks several times, but she realised that in this total silence, only her own footsteps and panting breath resounded.

Her footsteps finally brought her back to the arch and its knights. She stood in front of the door with her hands on her hips. She gazed doubtfully at the eight massive statues. The only thing she had noticed was the letters, or perhaps initials, engraved in the pedestal of each statue. A, V, M, B for those on her left, and C, O, G, L for those on her right. She spent a moment thinking, perhaps hoping to find a code with these letters, before giving up, finding nothing conclusive. She couldn't tell where but she knew she had already seen those letters somewhere else. She shook her head in annoyance.

Let's try this way, then

Without any motivation, and without any conviction, she began to go around the statues one by one. She observed them, one after the other, from bottom to top, sometimes climbing up on the pedestals on which they rested to illuminate dark corners where the adventurer would have hoped to find something. On several occasions, she exerted pressure on blocks of stone, hoping to move them to reveal another passage or hiding place. Nothing helped. After a long time, after going through the eight knights, she stopped again at the big door, disappointed. She took a few minutes to take a few deep breaths, and to refocus, as she felt the irritation rising inside her.

Determined, Lara started to turn around in front of the guards again. She instinctively moved towards those on her right, before stopping in front of the second one. Until now, she had not seen how detailed the sculptures were, as if the men who had been there before had wanted to retrace the smallest details so that the sculpture would survive over the centuries. The Englishwoman felt almost threatened when she came across the empty gaze of the guard: its cold, smooth look pierced her with its realism, hidden under a helmet whose stem descended over its nose.

Curious, but above all determined not to leave without a clue, the young woman approached a little closer. She grasped the edge of the pedestal on which the statue was resting, and climbed onto the platform. As she tried to point the torch a little higher, she realised that the knight's back was strangely carved, as if hollowed out. She couldn't help but frown, even though she was seized with a rush of adrenaline. She could already see the hope that she had found the solution, although she was surprised at how easily it had come about.

Guess Werner hadn't found out about this...

She took the time to adjust her gloves before she started to climb the stone guard. After an impulse she clung to the leg of the statue and began her ascent, not without slipping, due to the humidity.

... he would have never reached this point, by the way

Guided by her torch, she held herself to the sword's handle to grab the warrior's shoulder before sliding behind him. She went between the wall and the back of the statue, her legs bent in front of her to push back the back of the stone warrior and keep her balance, her back stuck to the wall. The position was not really comfortable, but from where she was, she now had full access to the system. She stared at the mechanism, incredulous, her eyebrows raised, unable to hide her surprise. She understood that it was obviously several pieces that formed an overall mechanism.

A few interlocking wooden cogs were embedded in a small alcove in the guard's back. At the bottom of the pyramid they formed a perfectly drawn circle had been traced in the stone, with a tiny opening in its centre into which an object that would have served as a key could be inserted.

Lara pouted, doubting. She had no object in her possession, or in any case, she had no recollection of Werner leaving her any object that might have corresponded to the opening: the shape of the enclave where the key was inserted was really tiny, only the size of a small gemstone, a pendant or a small key.

The first idea that came to her mind was to take out her knife to hook the system, as she would have done with a lock. Again, without any conviction, the young woman, with a skilful gesture, grabbed the knife from her bag before tackling the opening. She turned the weapon in one direction and then in the other, the steel blade scraping furiously against the stone. She kept at it for long minutes, before taking a break, she was getting hot. After she had calmed down a little, she slid the blade of the knife into the opening again, this time with more insistance. After a few minutes however, nothing happened, and the young woman began to doubt her technique. Just as she was about to give up, the tip of the knife hit an obstacle, and a click occurred, like a dry snap, which resounded in the cavity. Lara withdrew the blade, alert, holding her breath, waiting for the slightest movement. Then after a few seconds, a muffled rumble, rising from the depths of the earth, sounded. The walls shook around her, and a wave of dust mixed with earth fell from the ceiling. When the young woman leaned forward, she realised that the door had indeed just opened.

Back then I could have explained to those people how to properly hide a secret opening system. And above all how to make it effective

She remained suspended where she was, holding her breath, her ear outstretched at the slightest noise that would have come up from the room that had just been opened. She let a few minutes go by, and seeing that nothing was moving or happening, she began her descent to the floor. She let herself slide gently over the rocky ground, hands on her pistols. Tiptoeing, almost bent in half, she stealthily approached the opening, from which a fresh air emanated.

Hidden behind the door frame, Lara discovered with surprise a huge staircase, which seemed to descend even deeper into the depths of the earth.

A creaking sound was heard in her back, and she had just enough time to bend down and roll sideways to dodge the giant blade that was coming down on her. As she stood up and turned around, still crouching, 9mm pointed in front of her, she found herself face to face with one of the stone statues. The guard with the O pedestal had detached himself from the wall and was now facing her, and was not without reminding her of some of the enemies she had fought in previous expeditions.

"That's nice to finally meet you in person," she told it as she pulled the trigger.

The first ball ricocheted off the guardian's shoulder. The statue emitted a deep sound, halfway between an animal grunt and a human throat scraping. His whole body creaked up and down as he reached out his arm to raise his sword above his head.

"I think you need a little exercise, knight!"

Lara aimed at the torso, and once again the bullets got lost, as if sucked up by the stone. The sword fell heavily again, clattering against the rock. The adventuress jumped forward, pushing her leg against the blade that had fallen not far from her to gain momentum. She landed a few metres further on, rolled forward before turning around, aiming at her enemy. She fired. This time, the bullets burst against the back of the statue, which emitted another dull grunt. Its movements were extremely slow and heavy, which was a real advantage for the adventuress, although she imagined that the confrontation would have been fatal for many other average visitors.

The statue finally stood up, brandishing its heavy sword again towards the adventuress. This time she aimed directly at its face: the bullets penetrated it one by one, shattering the features of what was supposed to be a human face. Lara did not stop her shot at any time, hitting the statue before it reached her. She couldn't hold back a grimace when she felt her clip was coming to an end as the statue came upon her, its face now drowned under the crumbling stone. The last of the young woman's bullets eventually completely penetrated the thickness of what was left of the statue's face and embedded themselves in the wall behind them. Just as the guardian stood above her, the adventuress rolled to the side to find shelter between the wall and the base of one of the other statues, and fired one last shot.

The enemy was caught in a jolt, and in a final rumble, cut off in its tracks, the guardian toppled over, and exploded into literally thousands of stone blocks when it hit the ground. Its sword ricocheted and slid a little further into the cave. The young woman waited a few minutes until the silence and calm had returned before she stood up, panting.

Again, a real walk in the park

On the defence, she advanced between the blocks of what was now left of the statue. She was surprised none of the others had not woken up already.

After catching her breath, she decided to turn away and enter the opening that had been made by the door she had managed to open.

Huge chandeliers, carved into the rock and pressed against the walls, hung above her head. Their flames rippled with force and illuminated the enclosed space, unlike the rest of the cave. Lara followed their light all the way to the bottom, for about thirty metres, before finally ending up in a large oval room, similar to a small church or chapel: the side walls were framed by high twisted columns, large iron chandeliers hung from the buttressed ceiling. Also carved out of the rock, a large table and seats were enthroned in its centre. At the far end, a sort of altar overlooked the rest of the space from the top of its platform. The place was cold, there was no specific decoration, no ornament or tapestry, only the rough stone.

She made a first tour of the place, in reconnaissance, her weapons still burning in her hands. She walked around the table and went straight to the back of the room and the altar. There again, she contemplated the rest of the space from where she was standing, but noticed nothing concrete. For hours it seemed to her, she walked around in circles, scanning every corner from one side of the room to the other, never encountering anything other than the infinitely compact and austere rock and the humidity that took her nostrils.

On several occasions, she took out Von Croy's notebook to help her, but nothing helped. She was at a dead end.

For the umpteenth time, she went up to the altar and as she walked around it, her foot stumbled against something. One of the slabs under her foot was wobbly. She crouched down and at eye level, engraved on the edge of the altar, was the same Latin phrase that she had not noticed at first sight:

Nisi Lux Animae Dirigit

After a quick glance at the stone stuck under her storeroom, the young woman deduced that it was not the stone that was wobbly, but the one embedded in the altar, just above it. The adventurer exerted a slight pressure and a block of stone moved between her hands. Pushing a little harder, she managed to move the slab completely and to clear the space behind it. A tiny space appeared, dug out of the altar itself, but large enough to hide valuable objects or some important book or grimoire. Lara stared at the empty space, bewildered.

A perfect hiding place... except that there is nothing there

A deep sense of disappointment rose inside her. Then she noticed clear traces of friction on the floor, in the very place where she had just pushed the stele. There was no doubt that the stone had been moved very recently.

She straightened herself up and took a moment to put her thoughts back in place.

Werner was definitely on the track to something here. He certainly couldn't get to this part of the cave, but it is obvious that someone else passed through here, perhaps even after him, using what he had already discovered.

She suddenly felt lost. Without more information, she began to have serious doubts about continuing this mission. She found herself caught between the desire to continue her research here, and the desire to drop everything and draw a definitive line under the whole story. But in her heart she knew that it would be useless to stay here and keep at it. At this thought, she was suddenly seized with an excess of rage.

I will find nothing more for now

Carried by resignation, the young Englishwoman put away her notes, her coat of arms and went to the staircase. As she readjusted her backpack, she took a last look behind her at the great hall. Then she climbed the stairs four by four to go back up to the upper floors.

She quickly arrived at the great door and the statues, which had not moved since her first passage. She climbed over the rocks of the guardian's body scattered on the ground, or at least what was left of them, and made her way up the hundreds of metres of the cave at a brisk pace. When she finally saw the hatch's opening, she felt almost relieved. She grabbed the rim and climbed up with the strength of her arms, before finally emerging into the open air.

She was surprised to find herself in the twilight, which was finally falling: the orange-red sun was descending behind the mountains, far to the west. She found the gusts of wind she had left behind in the morning, and was seized by the almost icy evening air, which contrasted with the stifling air below she was coming from.

She put the large slab back in place and, as the person who had passed before her had undoubtedly done, she scattered a few handfuls of earth and pebbles to erase all traces of her passage. Gazing down at the small V cross at her feet, she let out a loud disbelieved sigh.

She got out of the tower, and retraced her way to the main path. After taking one last look at the castle, she turned her back, and started making her way down back to the village and the hotel, unable to hold back a feeling of both deception and frustration taking over, for she had never left ruins without bringing back something.