The Paladin Prophecy

PUZZLES

“These are French names,” said Elise, looking at the list.

“Duh,” said Nick.

“Eat your cake, Nick,” said Elise with a withering look.

“Lees, babe, I think we figured out they were French already, okay?” said Nick. “Except for that first one. Orlando.”

“And, pray tell, what kind of name is Orlando?” she asked.

“Hello?” said Nick. “It’s from Florida?”

Four of the roommates sat around the dining table; Ajay had gone to work on something in his room. Everyone but Will had their tablet on in front of them, although Nick was more focused on a slice of chocolate cake. They’d woken Elise and Brooke as soon as they returned and made coffee, and Will told them the whole story about the Peers and the Paladin, Lyle, and the tunnels to the Crag. Minus the monsters—Will thought it best to leave out any supernatural details until he was sure the girls were on board, and Nick and Ajay agreed. When Will was finished, Ajay transferred the photos Will had taken of the masks onto everyone’s tablets. Elise had lit up with interest throughout their account, but Brooke looked and acted remote. At least she was at the table, studying the photographs.

“You’re not here on scholarship, are you, Nick?” asked Will.

“I am totally on scholarship,” said Nick, taking another bite. “Man, I loves me some chocolate cake.”

“For gymnastics, not geography,” said Elise. “I’m half French, you nitwit. I speak and read French. My father’s French.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, what about your mom? She’s not French.”

“She’s Vietnamese, and she speaks French, and these are all, take my word for it, French names. Or more specifically, Frankish. From the Middle Ages.”

“Wicked,” said Nick. “So we know this much, then: They’re a bunch of middle-aged French dudes.”

Brooke touched Nick’s arm gently. “Please don’t talk anymore.”

“Guys,” said Will. “Concentrate. Once we figure out who the rest of the Peers are and what they’re up to, we may have the whole picture.”

“But it’s safe to say they’re not a bunch of middle-aged French dudes,” said Elise, glowering at Nick.

“Let’s focus on this insignia at the top of the list,” said Will, pointing to the photo he’d taken of it on Brooke’s tablet.

Brooke studied the image closely. “These look like they might be white chrysanthemums. We need a reference book on flowers.”

“Where will we get that at this time of night?” said Will.

“I’ll go to the library,” said Brooke, but she made no move to get up.

“How?” asked Will, puzzled.

“On my tablet,” she said.

“I thought they put the clamps on Internet access,” said Will.

“To outside servers,” said Brooke. “Not the ones on campus.”

“You still haven’t taken the tutorial?” asked Elise, incredulous.

“I haven’t had time,” said Will.

“Show him,” said Elise.

Brooke angled her tablet around for Will to see. The image on-screen—a high-def re-creation of their pod’s great room—didn’t startle him. He was getting used to these vastly superior graphics. This was something else.

Around the table sat three incredibly lifelike versions—virtual doubles—of Brooke, Elise, and Nick. And they were looking at him with all the poise and attention and—he didn’t know how else to put it—personality of their living counterparts.

“What in the world …,” said Will.

Elise, Brooke, and Nick laughed. The figures on-screen laughed along with them. None of their actions exactly synchronized with their real-life counterparts’ but they seemed eerily similar; it was like watching three pairs of big/small identical twins.

“What are those things?” asked Will.

“They’re called syn-apps,” said Brooke.

“Short for ‘synchronized synthetic applications,’ ” said Elise.

The fourth chair, where Will was sitting in real life—and where a version of “Will” would have completed the group—sat empty.

“So where am I?” asked Will.

“You haven’t taken the tutorial yet, dummy,” said Elise.

“Go to the library,” said Brooke to her screen. Brooke’s syn-app stood up from the table. The walls of their pod on her screen morphed seamlessly into towering stacks of a vast library. “Find a book on the symbolic significance of flowers.”

Her syn-app waved okay, in a way that seemed utterly Brookeian. Then she walked toward the stacks to find her objective. Will guessed that he was seeing nothing more than a sophisticated “waiting” screen while the computer searched a database, but the effect still floored him.

“Is that the real library?” asked Will.

“A virtually real one,” said Brooke. “A replica of the Archer Library, the main one on campus. With digital versions of all its books and archives.”

Will pointed to the figures of other “students” that Brooke passed, seated in chairs or at tables, browsing through shelves.

“So those are other students’ syn-apps, doing research online,” said Will.

“Exactly,” said Brooke. “All in real time. Like a chat room.”

“Only nobody’s chatting,” said Nick. “ ’Cause it’s a library.”

Will looked at Elise’s tablet. Brooke was gone from her screen as well. And Elise was staring out at Will with the same cocky, sardonic smile the real Elise usually wore.

“So if I take that tutorial—” said Will.

“Your tablet will create your own syn-app,” said Brooke.

“And people used to think photographs stole your soul,” said Will, shaking his head.

“Nya-ah-ah,” said Nick.

Elise sighed. “It’s just a graphic stand-in for an intuitive user interface.”

“Yeah, whatever,” said Nick. “Check that at the door, ’cause let me tell you what: having your own little dude is freaking massive.”

“How do they make it look so much like you?” asked Will.

“Sophisticated character-based three-D modeling,” said Elise. “Rendered from your appearance and behavior. The software learns from observing you.”

“To be more like you,” said Nick. “How shwhacked is that?” Nick turned his tablet around. Nick’s character was walking around the table on his hands, making goofy faces. Nick got up and walked around the table on his hands.

“Yep,” said Will. “That’s you, all right.”

Back at work, Elise was examining the insignia on the letterhead above the names with a magnifying glass. “These might be weapons around the edge of the bouquet,” she said. “Or maybe tools.”

Ajay hurried out of his bedroom to join them, carrying his tablet. “Good news. I’ve collated the GPS data I grabbed from the tunnels. Now let’s lay it over a grid of the campus and see what we find.”

Ajay set his tablet on the table. Will snuck a look at it and saw the syn-app version of Ajay moving images around on-screen. Ajay’s double appeared even more elfin than he did, almost like an anime character, with enormous brown eyes.

“Okay, that’s just freaky,” said Will.

“Good gravy, man, haven’t you taken the tutorial?” asked Ajay.

“Not sure I want to,” said Will. “Not after seeing this.”

“I’ve got it. They’re weapons and tools,” said Elise, studying the insignia through the magnifying glass. “The two on top are a sword and a hatchet—”

“Hello,” said Nick. “Just like Paladin dude.”

“And the two on the bottom are a builder’s square … and a compass.…”

“A compass,” said Nick. “That could be a clue. What direction is it pointing?”

“Not a navigational compass, a drafting compass. The kind architects and draftsmen use to draw circles,” said Elise, showing them her screen.

“All four objects could also be something else,” said Brooke, scrutinizing the insignia on her screen. “I think they might be letters.”

“What kind of letters?” asked Nick, trying to drink coffee while balancing upside down on one hand.

“Calligraphy of some kind,” said Brooke. “From an archaic alphabet.”

“Let’s check it out,” said Elise. She held the Peers list in front of her screen. Elise stood up from the table on-screen to study the page, then reached to the top of the screen and brought down an exact copy of the list.

“Okay, what the heck just happened?” asked Will.

“The tablet used its camera to scan the letter, rendered a virtual copy, and delivered it into the simulation,” said Elise. “So my syn-app could go find a match.”

Elise on-screen looked up at Will and said, “Pretty spooky, huh?”

Will fell over backward on his chair. “It talked!”

“Boo-yah,” said Nick.

“They all can,” said Brooke. “Once they get to know you.”

“Oh, they can do a lot more than talk,” said Nick, helping Will up while still walking on his hands. “If you know what I’m saying, wink, wink.”

“There’s a difference,” said Elise, “between using a tool and being a tool.”

“Touché, my lady,” said Nick, flipping back to his feet and giving a small bow.

Elise rolled her eyes, then spoke to her syn-app. “Library.”

The environment on-screen around Elise shifted to the same academic library. Elise started toward the stacks, and on the way passed Brooke, coming back with a large open book. The syn-apps waved to each other.

Will peeked over Brooke’s shoulder at her screen as her character ported back to the pod. She looked at them, held up a book about flowers, and moved close to the screen. Brooke read the entry her double had found: “The white mum is the city flower of Chicago … and the flower of the month of November.…”

“Step back now,” said Nick, snapping his fingers. “Dudes, we’re not that far from Chicago … and … it’s November right now.”

“Take a deep breath,” said Ajay slowly. “And try to prevent your mind from working altogether.”

“The white mum is also the emblem of a mysterious organization called the Fraternity of the Triangle,” said Brooke, still reading. “A secret society of scientists, architects, and engineers. Its origins reach back to the Middle Ages … and they’re aligned with the Freemasons.”

“Now you’re on to something,” said Ajay, excited. “The compass and builder’s square, which you found in this insignia, are both Masonic symbols.”

“Freemasons?” asked Nick. “Is that a fraternity, too?”

“Neither is a ‘fraternity,’ Nick,” said Brooke wearily. “At least not the kind you’re thinking of.”

“And what kind might that be?” asked Nick.

“College pledges, Greek Week,” said Brooke.

“Frat house keggers,” said Elise. “Horny knuckleheads projectile vomiting.”

“My point exactly,” said Nick, banging his fist on the table.

“Don’t be a nincompoop,” said Ajay. “These are centuries-old organizations with notorious reputations for secrecy and violence.”

“For real?” said Nick, sitting back down. “I am so stoked.”

“Okay, found it,” said Elise, swinging her tablet around. Her syn-app transported from the virtual library to their great room and held a leather-bound volume to the screen, displaying a page of calligraphic letters.

“The letters are from the Carolingian alphabet,” said Elise, reading from the screen. “The standard script used for handwriting in western Europe between about 800 and 1200 AD.”

“Carolingian means ‘under the leadership of Carolus,’ ” said Ajay. “The Latin name of the emperor Charlemagne, who united Europe for the first time since the Romans and was eventually crowned emperor by the pope.”

“Which suggests that whoever the Peers are, they were inspired by some group that originated during the reign of Charlemagne?” asked Brooke.

“Perhaps so,” said Ajay.

“So which letters are these?” asked Will.

Elise put the insignia next to the ancient alphabet and said, “T, k, o, c.”

Nick grabbed a pen and paper and wrote them down. On his screen, his syn-app did the same.

“Okay, I’m officially confusiated,” said Nick, scratching his head at what he’d written. “T-k-o-c doesn’t spell anything.”

“Maybe it’s an anagram,” said Brooke. “Mix up the letters.”

“Interestingly, although Charlemagne was exceptionally tall and imposing for that era,” continued Ajay, “roughly six foot two, his father was apparently a dwarf.”

“Dude … how can you possibly remember all that random stuff?”

Ajay glanced nervously at Will. “Well, I do study a great deal, and I take copious notes, and I guess I have above-average retention—”

“Okay, scoreboard,” said Nick, who triumphantly held up his list of words and pointed to the last one. “Check it out.”

“Tock,” said Brooke. “That’s the best you could do.”

“Tock could mean something,” said Nick.

“Yes. If you were a clock,” said Ajay.

“At least a clock can tell time,” said Elise, scowling.

Nick looked discouraged, but his on-screen counterpart held up to the screen the page he had written, whistled, and waved his arms excitedly to catch Nick’s eye.

“Hold on, hold on,” said Nick. He then tried to pronounce the variations on his syn-app’s page. “Ktoc, cokt, ockt … crap, I sound like a cat with a hairball—”

Nick started choking on-screen, like a cat.

“Amazing,” said Ajay, shaking his head. “Even his cartoon is a moron.”

“Somewhere,” said Elise, drumming her fingers on the table, “there’s a tiny little village that’s missing its idiot.”

“Screw it, where’d we stash the Scrabble set?” Nick got up and rifled through the kitchen. He returned with a bag of letter tiles, fishing out the four he needed.

“Have a look at this,” said Ajay as he laid his tablet on the table. A three-dimensional view of the campus appeared in midair, floating above his screen. Ajay used his hands to expand the image until it covered most of the table.

“Now let’s track the coordinates I entered.…” Using his fingers to scroll the image, Ajay moved their point of view until it hovered over the field house. The building turned transparent, revealing a detailed re-creation of the men’s locker room. “We entered the tunnel from the locker room … went down these stairs, turned hard left … and followed the hall to here.…”

He moved his finger down a long straightaway, outlining the path of the tunnel, until he reached another blinking point at the end.

“The door to the auxiliary locker room,” said Ajay. “Exactly one-quarter of a mile under the athletic fields.” He touched his screen again; the smaller locker room appeared, and inside it another doorway. “We entered the second tunnel here behind the lockers. Now watch.”

Their point of view rose back into a bird’s-eye view as he tracked the tunnel to the east. “By the time we moved through that large chamber and reached the T-intersection, we were over two hundred feet underground.”

Two corridors branched off at ninety degrees. The one to the right ran directly under the photo-real waters of Lake Waukoma.

“We followed the right fork to here,” said Ajay. The blinking spot moved under the lake to the island and came to a stop at the hatch behind the Crag.

“The Crag was built in the early 1870s,” said Ajay. “It’s my opinion that these tunnels were built at the same time. A rough geologic network of caves probably existed here already.”

“Like the ones on the bluff across the lake,” said Will.

“Correct,” said Ajay, “but it took enormous effort to extend and finish them, as we saw. The required resources would have been on hand when the castle was being built, and I believe only a person rich and eccentric enough to create such a folly in the first place could have built those tunnels. Therefore, I think whoever put up the Crag also created these tunnels. Over fifty years before the Center was built.”

“So who built the Crag?” asked Will.

“I’ll find out,” said Brooke. “But why were the tunnels built in the first place?”

“We can’t answer that yet,” said Will.

“Do you think the people who chased you from the castle have something to do with the Peers?” asked Elise, looking concerned.

“I’m not sure,” said Will. “We know the guy who owns it now, Haxley, keeps heavy security on the island. Maybe they were just guards reacting to the presence of intruders.”

“Will, they were practically waiting for us when we came up that ladder,” said Ajay.

“And that tunnel leads directly to the Peers’ meeting room,” said Elise. “There must be some connection.”

“I think she’s right, Will,” said Ajay.

“Then let’s keep looking for that,” said Will.

“Okay, all that’s awesome and totally sick,” said Nick, obsessing over the Scrabble tiles. “But these four frickin’ letters still don’t spell frickin’ anything.”

“That’s because they’re not an anagram,” said Brooke, excited, staring intently at her screen. “They’re an acronym.”

“You mean something that means the opposite of something?” asked Nick.

“No, that’s an antonym,” said Brooke. “An acronym means they’re the first letters of words or a phrase that mean something.” She rearranged Nick’s tiles to their original order. “T … K … O … C.”

“You mean like LOL?” asked Nick skeptically.

“Yes,” said Brooke. “Like an acronym.”

“LQTM,” said Nick.

“What’s that mean?” asked Ajay.

“Laughing quietly to myself,” said Nick.

“So what’s the phrase for TKOC?” asked Will.

Brooke turned her tablet around. Her syn-app opened another leather-bound book from the library and held it to the screen. They were looking at a lavish two-page color illustration, a heroic painting of twelve heavily armored knights on horseback.

“The Knights of Charlemagne,” said Brooke. “The twelve greatest warriors who served under Emperor Charlemagne. They called themselves the Peers, and every name on that list you found is here: Orlando, Renaldo, Namo—”

The others crowded around her to take a look.

“—Salomon, Turpin, Astolpho, Ogier, Malagigi, Padraig, Florismart, Ganelon, Guerin de Montglave—”

“Dude,” said Nick. “My head’s about to asplode.”

“That’s why the Peers used Frankish letters for this acronym,” said Ajay. “A hidden clue to their origin and identity, concealed in the insignia.”

“The first twelve names are here,” said Elise, scanning the list from the book. “But not the last one: the Old Gentleman.”

“So who is he, then?” asked Will.

“I have an idea about that,” said Brooke, paging through her online book. “Give me a second.”

“Let’s put this together,” said Will, pacing as he thought it through. “The locker room and those tunnels are being used by members of a group called the Knights of Charlemagne. A modern incarnation of an ancient order that may have some connection to the person who built that castle.”

“Or the person who lives there today,” said Elise.

“And the Knights are definitely connected to the Black Caps who came after me,” said Will.

“Maybe they’re all part of the same organization,” said Ajay.

“Maybe,” said Will.

“So what do we freakin’ do about it?” asked Nick, pacing opposite Will.

“Our mission hasn’t changed,” Ajay said. “We have to find out who the Peers are. Who did Will see down there with the hats and masks? Who chased us through the tunnels tonight?”

“We know who one of them is,” said Elise.

“Lyle,” said Will. “We’ll start with him.”

Brooke gasped and stood up abruptly, holding her tablet.

“Listen to this,” she said, alarmed.

“Don’t scare me like that,” said Nick.

Brook urgently read another passage from her syn-app’s book: “Charlemagne’s twelve knights accompanied him on two different crusades when the emperor led his army across Europe to capture Jerusalem and the Holy Land for the ‘civilized’ western kingdoms.”

“And what’s the significance of that?” asked Ajay.

“Charlemagne had another name for these guys,” said Brooke. “His twelve knights … were the original Paladins.”

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