The Lost Crown of the Knights Templar

31 In Hoc Signo Vinces

After Nina had played witness to the terrifying symbology in the grand hall, she found it impossible to sleep or hold down any of the food she was given. Ayer came to check on her where she was listlessly lying on her stone bed.

“Dr. Gould, may I have a word?” he asked politely from the doorway.

Nina only shrugged, not feeling like talking at all. She could hear his clothing rustling as he came in and sat down.

“I have received word from Mr. Cleave,” he began, watching Nina sit up at once.

“What did he say?” she asked.

Ayer’s face betrayed nothing of his thoughts or plans, making it difficult for her to ascertain the amount of trouble she was facing, if any. It was just good to hear that Sam was still alright — alive. She had no misgivings about the men who kept her. After their violence on Toshana and the killings at the morgue, not to mention the manner in which they conducted the funerals of their fallen brothers, she knew full well that these were by no means gentle monks that would make Buddha proud.

“He cannot deliver Toshana to us. Apparently they had her, but somehow allowed her to escape them. Dr. Gould, I hate to have to resort to this, but it is time for a sacrifice on one of the sides here. Otherwise we will be locked in this stalemate, you see,” he imparted the sentence as politely as he could. “I must prove to Sam Cleave that Toshana must be killed at all costs, either by him or by us. But I fear he misjudges us, thinking us fools who will wait patiently for him to deliver what he stole from us.”

Nina felt her legs go numb, a sure sign of terror, but she tried to hold her voice steady. Ayer’s cryptic words did not clarify enough for her to make a decision in her emotional state. Her hands were perspiring dreadfully, as if her common sense had already made the decision to panic. With a heavy heart, she tried to come to a certain conclusion. “So, what does that mean for me, Ayer?”

As he spoke, Nina watched his face distort into a monster, the result of the tears impairing her sight. “I am so sorry, Dr. Gould,” he said, “but we will have to make an example of you. If Sam still does not comply after what we do to you, he will have proven inept, spiteful, and unreliable.”

“W-wh-at?” Nina stuttered in disbelief. Her slender hands wrung within one another, savoring for old time’s sake the comfort of not being in pain, of being alive and comfortable. “What? Are y-you going to k-ill me, then?”

He simply nodded, looking down in sympathy. “Please, do not see this as a personal act of animosity towards you, Nina.”

That was the illogical attitude that sent her into a fit of rage. Nina did not mean to, but her emotions had a way of steering her will and she leapt to her feet, her eyes burning into him as she screeched, “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Are you fucking insane?” Nina’s body inadvertently darted forward and she swung at him. The impact of her palm against his face clapped so hard that Gille came rushing in, but Ayer motioned for him to leave. “Oh, it’s not personal, but we are going to kill you to teach Sam a lesson?” she carried on in repugnance.

Ayer regarded her, keeping his hands steadily next to him on the edge of the chair. He had no intention to return the blow — yet. Intelligence afforded him understanding of her reaction and he allowed her to fume. She deserved as much. His cheek felt like coals under a grill, but what hurt more was the fact that he’d truly believed that they wouldn’t have to harm the historian. Killing Nina Gould had never been in his plan book, but now it was the only way, a way that did not please him or boast any pride for him.

“How could a smart bloke like you allow that sort of thinking to dictate your vendetta’s, Ayer?” she hissed, her pretty face tainted by fury and panic. “Tell me! Tell me how you can condone this irrational ideology?” Tears streaked over her cheeks and rained from her jaw line as her teeth held back the saliva of her words. If he could, Ayer would have held her to make amends, but there was no place for affection or mercy in the eye of ancient rites that had to be upheld.

She could hear the men outside in the corridor, murmuring. Their feet scuffled on the cement floor, giving away their number. Nina stopped screaming and listened, her dark, wet eyes darting to the doorway. “They are here, aren’t they?” she asked Ayer. “All of them. The whole bloody lot are standing outside.”

“Oui,” Ayer replied. “This is why we were not allowed to harm you or starve you, Dr. Gould. If it came to this, to a delivering unto the Goat of Mendes to activate vril for the head to function again, you had to be strong. Pain and starvation would have left your energy wanting, Nina, and that would be of no use to us.”

“This makes no sense,” she wailed, pacing back and forth. Escape was futile anyway. In all the days she’d spent here, not once had she seen a way out. No windows, not even doors, were visible in this place of unholy men with the morality of priests. “None of this makes sense. If you sacrifice me to Baphomet, you will still not have the mechanical Head of Pope Sylvester! Think, Ayer!”

Calmly, he sighed and answered, “No, we would not, but your death will send Sam into action. Your energy will still be harnessed to activate the Head when we do claim it back. But make no mistake, Dr. Gould, this must be done to seal the secret of the Crown of the Templars.”

“Jesus Christ! Can’t you just leave ancient legends in the history texts?” she cried. “Why do you have to practice barbaric rites from the Dark Ages?”

Ayer had had his fill of the fight. His voice became hard and low as he stood up. “Do you know why these practices are still necessary, Nina?” he roared. “Because people keep unearthing them, forcing us to uphold the old ways to keep the maddening world from getting their hands on powers beyond their abilities! Do you wish to address the barbaric rites?” He clasped her head between two strong hands and he looked her dead in the eye. “Look around you, Dr. Gould. Look at the state of the world today and tell me which age was the most sick and barbaric in what they allowed? Tell me, as a historian, where have you found more atrocity and sickness being allowed, no, condoned, as accepted behavior?”

He released her crudely, sending her staggering backwards. “You women, you keep opening that vault of atrocity, from Eve to Pandora. Then you want to cry and reason when your incessant questions lead you to despair!”

“You base us on mythologies, Ayer,” she replied in a much calmer tone, her words mispronounced under the force of her condition. “Eve? Come now, none of that entire episode makes sense. Pandora? Did she even exist? These are all fabrications of men!”

“Fabrications?” he asked.

Nina was only too forthcoming with her debate. “Mythologies created by men to overrule women, to assert power where they had none,” she barked, her face contorted in disdain and mockery. “Playing God’s Advocate in their lies to indoctrinate their male bloodlines to subdue us, to blame us for all your fuckups, Ayer! Blame the women, like all you hypocrites do, when you cannot admit your own fuckups or take responsibility for your own choices. So please, don’t feed me that shit.”

Ayer smiled. He crossed his arms across his chest and paused.

“What?” she asked. She was so engaged in her diatribe that she had not realized that she was defending precisely what the Militum were doing. On her cheeks her tears had dried and her fear was replaced by fight.

“Merci, Dr. Gould,” he smiled. “Finally you understand what Baphomet is to us. It is a beast and a human, because in all men there are animals. Its arms, one lifted above and the other dropped below. Between its horns, a flame above the mind, a representation of that very curiosity so hated by the church. You see, there is no good side or bad side. It depends on what you seek. That makes you side with an ideology and that ideology can be demonized by the church, or the church can be demised by those who ask questions.”

Nina could not fault a single word he uttered as fallacy, but felt her metaphorical eyes open to what she had been blind to when she thought she knew the Crown of the Knights Templar and its purpose. He continued, smiling. “And the Militum revere that innate need to question, Dr. Gould, as you do. When one can manage to look past the imagery imprinted on us as blatant evil, one soon discovers that Baphomet is the spirit of that enlightenment the dogmas of religion wish us to avoid, the equal duality of the universe, both male… and female.”

“You tricked me,” she pouted, feeling exhausted and upset, but noticed that her fear had subsided a little.

“No, I simply forced you to see beyond the ugly face of what you have been told to be afraid of,” he told Nina.

“But to worship it,” she winced.

“I never inferred worship. I spoke of reverence for truth, for the illumination of lies. I spoke of the representation of opposing sides into one unit. This thing, to us at least, is not a god. To us it is a physical icon that imparts universal wisdom, not evil or good, just wisdom on things bigger than the division of religion. By no means do we worship it, Dr. Gould,” Ayer explained.

Gille cleared his throat, snapping Ayer out of his lecture. He clapped his hands together.

“Ah! It is time we get this going, then,” he announced.

Nina felt her stomach churn. Ayer’s rational and intelligent explanations did make her understand, but knowing that she was about to die released in her the natural rebellion toward that which she had just agreed with.

You know that screaming is useless, she told herself. If this is really happening, then you have no way of fighting it. Save yourself the embarrassment of trying to run away, or squealing for their delight.

Gille and two others came in as Ayer left the room where Nina waited. They were dressed in ceremonial cowls of dark brown cheesecloth so that she could not tell them apart unless they spoke. Under their hoods, Nina saw the uniform black masks they wore to make them impossible to tell apart.

She fought against her instinct to attack them when they started stripping her, and she held her breath as their crude hands groped at her while undressing her hastily. Nina’s eyes froze on the floor as they threw her on the bed and hogtied her hands to her ankles behind her.

Die with courage, then, if you have to, her inner voice screamed at her.Do not let them remember you as a blithering, wailing, pathetic creature. If you are meant to survive this, you will. Accept your fate, but nothing wrong with a little hope, aye?

Her emotions opted for indifference, for apathy, as the first pain was introduced — rope burns from the tight ties. When they lifted her, her weight on their shoulders bruised her skin and the cold was chewing at her bare skin. Nina was naked as the day she was born and her hair was tied back harshly so that she would see what was coming.

“You won’t be cold for much longer, Dr. Gould,” one of the hooded men said. His words vanished in the din of the dragon’s breath that thundered throughout the hall a few meters away still. She started to sob in fear. In this nightmare, she could not help it. On her skin she could feel the same gooseflesh, but now the cold had surrendered to the immense heatwaves coming from the hall. Nina pressed her eyes shut, and she hated Sam like she had never hated him before. Under her breath she cursed him to hell, the same hell she was about to enter.