Templar's Code

CHAPTER 33

“Edie!”

Too terrified to answer, afraid she’d lose her grip, Edie clung to a stone nubbin that protruded from the side of the dark shaft. She frantically moved her dangling feet, hoping, pleading . . .

Yes!

One booted foot found purchase on a miniscule pucker of rock.

“I’m down here,” she hoarsely called out. “I fell into a shaft.” She didn’t dare look up, fearful she’d lose her balance. She also didn’t look down, sensing that an inky abyss yawned beneath her.

A beam of light suddenly illuminated the shaft.

“My God, are you all right?” Caedmon’s voice echoed off the stone walls, the sound strangely distorted.

“No, I’m hanging on for dear life,” she whimpered. With her hands painfully crimped, her right foot awkwardly splayed, and her left foot limply suspended in midair, she wondered how long she could maintain her precarious perch.

“Don’t panic.”

“You’re kidding, right?” She felt a trickle of blood meander down the side of her face, having scraped her cheek when she took the unexpected plunge. Probably scraped a whole lot of body parts.

“I want you to listen very carefully.” Caedmon spoke slowly, precisely, the way one would speak to a terrified child. “You’re about six feet from the surface. Too far of a distance for me to physically reach you.”

“Oh God, no!”

“Not to fear. I will get you out of the shaft, but it’s going to take a minute or two before I can toss a lifeline down to you.” Caedmon pulled the flashlight away from the opening, the shaft instantly cast into darkness.

“Please hurry,” Edie murmured, her cheek pressed against the rusticated stone. “Any idea what the hell just happened?”

“You fell into a very cleverly designed death trap,” Caedmon’s disembodied voice replied. “My guess is that the opening was concealed with a layer of clay hardpan.”

“Which gave way when I stepped on it.”

“Precisely. The Templars obviously didn’t want anyone stealing whatever it was that had been safeguarded in the sanctuary. Quite an engineering feat, really.”

Edie made no comment. Instead she clamped her jaw together. Tight. Trying to stop her teeth from clattering, worried that the slightest motion would upset what had become a delicate balancing act. She knew the chitchat was Caedmon’s attempt at keeping her calm. And while she loved him for it, it wasn’t doing a damned thing to quell her fear.

The golden beam of light reappeared.

“I want you to listen very carefully to me, Edie. I’m about to lower a lifeline to you. It will pass on your right side. Understood?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, not altogether certain what he meant by a “lifeline.”

She had her answer a few moments later when a length of soft chambray grazed her right hand. She instantly recognized the blue fabric—it was the sleeve from Caedmon’s shirt.

“I’ve tied my anorak and shirt together, contriving a lead for you to grasp. Now, very carefully, you are to reach out and take hold of the lead with your right hand.”

Edie visualized the instructions just given to her. Very quickly she realized that to grab hold of the lead, she’d have to let go of the rock that she was clinging to.

“I can’t!”

“You can,” Caedmon urged. “It won’t take but a second to grab the sleeve. Grasp it and wrap the fabric around your hand. Good and tight. While you do that, you can continue holding on to the rock with your left hand.”

“But I might lose my balance.” Her voice was little more than a terrified croak.

“The key is not to make any sudden movements. Maintain your center of balance by taking slow, measured breaths. Understood?”

She made no reply, terrified that she was seconds away from plunging to her death.

“Edie, this is the only way to extract you from the shaft. Please, love . . . I know you can do this.”

She heard a catch in his voice. That’s when she knew the calm tone was all for show. Caedmon was just as terrified as she. For some insane reason, that imbued her with a burst of courage.

Not giving herself time to change her mind, Edie released her hold on the rock, moved her fingers a scant inch to the right. Snatching hold of the dangling length of chambray, she wrapped the fabric around her hand.

She held the shirt in a death grip.

“Okay, I just jumped the first hurdle. Now what?” She still didn’t have the courage to crane her neck and look up.

“You now need to grab the lead with your left hand. After which, you can firmly plant the soles of your boots against the shaft wall. While I haul you to the surface, you will carefully climb up the side of the shaft. Similar to rappelling down the side of Yawgoog’s bridge,” Caedmon informed her, once again speaking in that surreally calm voice. “Only in reverse.”

“Are you insane? It’s completely different. If I lose my grip, I’m a goner.” If she’d lost her grip on the bridge, she would have simply gone for a cold dunk.

“Rest assured, I have a firm grip on my end. Believe me, Edie, if I could climb into this hole and carry you on my back, I would. But I can’t.”

“I know, Caedmon. I know.” She fought back the tears. At the moment, it was the only battle she had a prayer of winning.

Stay in control.

Stay focused.

It’s the only way to get out of the shaft.

To that end, Edie grabbed the length of fabric with her left hand, following through on the rest of Caedmon’s instructions. To her surprise, the new position—flat-footed, torso inclined away from the shaft wall—felt far more secure than the old position. She even felt stable enough to peer up to the top of the shaft. She could see that Caedmon’s long legs were straddled over the shaft opening, his feet firmly planted on the rim, giving him the necessary leverage to hoist her to the top.

“Set to begin the upward trek?”

“Ready to roll,” she called up to him.

With Caedmon doing all of the heavy lifting, the climb was much easier than she had envisioned. Between his grunts and her groans, Edie slowly and sure-footedly made her way to the top. When Caedmon secured a hand around her wrist, pulling her up and out of the shaft, she collapsed against him.

Still holding her in his arms, Caedmon scooted away from the shaft.

“You’re only wearing an undershirt,” she inanely whispered against his chest.

“I was fully prepared to strip naked if need be.”

“Just so you know, that was the ground zero of fear.”

“For us both.” Caedmon jostled her shoulder. “We need to depart. Before the bloody roof collapses on us. That may not be the only death trap in the sanctuary.” There was no mistaking the urgency in his voice.

“What are you saying? That the entire place is booby-trapped?”

“It’s possible.” Shoving himself upright, he extended a hand to her. “Come on. There’s nothing more to investigate. While the sanctuary is proof that the Templars established a colony in the New World, it’s obvious that whatever treasure had been housed here disappeared long years ago.”

Edie scrambled to her feet. She belatedly realized that her digital camera limply hung around her neck. “Hope it still works. It took quite a beating in the fall.”

In the process of putting an arm into a chambray shirt sleeve, Caedmon gazed over at her. Instead of donning the shirt, he used the sleeve to gently wipe at her cheek. “It appears that you took quite a beating as well.”

She shoved his hand aside. “I can get cleaned up later. Let’s get the heck out of here. And I don’t know how to tell you this, but your beloved Knights Templar were a devious bunch of bastards.”

“The secret to their success,” he replied as he finished dressing. He handed her the second flashlight. “I lead, you follow. Do be vigilant.”

As they walked single file across the sanctuary, Edie aimed her flashlight at the floor, scanning for any anomaly that might be a concealed Templar death trap. No sooner did they go into the narrow passageway that led back to the cave entrance than she sighted something out of the ordinary.

“Stop!” she shouted, grabbing the back of Caedmon’s jacket with her free hand. “There’s something suspicious-looking on the floor. To the left side of the entryway.”

Slowly pivoting, Caedmon aimed his flashlight at the floor.

“Stay put,” he ordered. “I’m not certain, but . . . Good Lord! It’s an inscription.” He went down on bent knee. “It appears to be written in charcoal. Pass me your camera. I want to document this.”

Extending her arm, Edie handed over the camera. Afraid of falling into another shaft, she didn’t move her feet so much as an inch. From where she stood, she could see that the inscription was several lines long.

“What does it say?” she asked as Caedmon snapped off a shot.

Frowning, he shook his head. “No idea. As I recall, you brought your netbook computer.”

“It’s in my knapsack.”

“Excellent. I’m hoping we can get a mobile signal from the bridge. That will enable us to search the Internet. I’m not altogether certain, but I think the inscription is written in the Enochian alphabet.”

“The Enochian alphabet? Never heard of it.”

“Enochian is an occult language devised by Dr. John Dee in the late sixteenth century.”

“Next question: Who’s Dr. John Dee?”

Camera in hand, Caedmon walked toward her. “Well, that’s what is so damned odd. . . . Dr. John Dee, in addition to being an alchemist, was a personal advisor to the monarch, Queen Elizabeth.”