“Merlin!” he shouted in a strong, dignified British accent. “You made it!” With a sweep of his free arm, he motioned for them to enter.
“Yes, Patrick,” the professor replied, “but just barely, I’m afraid.”
Patrick put a strong hand on the professor’s shoulder, and his brow created a shadow over his deeply set eyes. “The Circle’s network buzzed with rumors of an attack, and Markus reported his escape with Bonnie and the capture of the great dragon. I have already dispatched Sir Bradford and his company to help Hartanna seek Clefspeare’s whereabouts. I’m so glad you weren’t also a victim.” He knelt, let the boy down on the floor, and with a love pat on the child’s back, shooed him away. The boy pattered across the tile, and an elderly woman scooped him up into her arms, then disappeared into a hallway. “We retrieved your luggage from our safe house,” Patrick continued. “I apologize for its lack of safety.”
The professor cupped his hand under Patrick’s elbow and gestured toward Billy and Bonnie. “Sir Patrick of Glastonbury, I would like to introduce you to William Bannister and Bonnie Silver.”
When Sir Patrick cast his gaze on Bonnie, his jaw fell. He swallowed hard, took a step toward her, and knelt, gently gripping the fingers of her hand as though he would give her knuckles a formal kiss. With a bow, he closed his eyes for a brief moment, then stared at her, his lips trembling to match his voice. “Young lady,” he said, tears filling his eyes, “it is a pleasure to be in your presence. Stories of your courage precede you, decorating you with honor and bringing glory to the great God whom you serve.”
When he rose, Bonnie blushed and smiled. “I’m delighted to meet you, Sir Patrick.”
He then turned to Billy. With his hands spread out, he dropped to one knee and bowed his head again. “Has Arthur finally made his presence known? If you are the Once and Future King, I submit myself to your service, Your Majesty.”
Billy had no idea what to say. A string of words came to his mind, and he tried to formulate a coherent sentence before opening his mouth. “Sir Patrick, the offer of your service is . . . um . . . a treasure beyond words. I trust that as I . . . embark on this mission . . . I won’t really foul things up.” He cringed. He hoped he didn’t sound too ridiculous.
Sir Patrick rose again. The nervousness in his smile was easy to read. “Merlin, our compatriots have discerned great danger. That’s why I sent Markus to find Bonnie. I have a well-placed spy in our enemies’ ranks who learned that our secrecy was compromised. Since your rendezvous point was already known to them, I dispatched my own squire to head them off.” He took a deep breath and gazed at Billy and Bonnie. “The mission has taken a dangerous turn. Our enemies may have infiltrated my staff, so I can trust only Markus from now on.”
“Agreed.” The professor reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew two microchips, displaying them in his open palm. “I extracted these from dark cloaks worn by our attackers.”
Sir Patrick pinched one and drew it close to his eyes. “Yes. My people brought the cloaks to me just a few minutes ago. The New Table has had cloaks and ID chips for years, but this is a new technology.”
The professor extended his palm, and Sir Patrick returned the chip. “I have an expert coming from the States,” the professor explained, “who will help us analyze them thoroughly. In fact, after we reveal the details of the mission to William and Miss Silver, I must be off to collect my expert and her traveling companion at Heathrow. They arrive during the evening hours, so I’m afraid I will have to leave before William’s appointed time.”
Sir Patrick raised his eyebrows. “Is that so?” His concerned expression then vanished as quickly as it came. “I can handle the monitoring on my own until you return.”
“Yes, I’m sure you are able, if our assumptions are correct. I wanted to be on hand, but these circumstances prevent me from attending at least the first circle. I shall return as soon as possible.”
Sir Patrick added a dose of cheer to his voice. “Then let’s all make the journey to the compass room, shall we? You still have several hours before you have to leave.”
As they moved deeper into the recesses of the huge mansion, the sound of laughter drifted through the hallway, children playing somewhere in the distance. Bonnie reached down and scooped up a clothbound book from the tile floor. She thumbed through its barnyard scenes as she walked. “How many children do you have, Sir Patrick?”
Patrick smiled and looked back. “Last count, I’d say about seventy-five.”
“Seventy-five!” Bonnie repeated, reaching the book toward him. “Your poor wife!”
He stopped and took the book from Bonnie. He hesitated as if he was going to say something, but he just folded the book and pushed it into his pocket before continuing his march down the hall.
“Sir Patrick inherited this estate,” the professor explained as he kept pace, “and converted it into an orphanage of sorts. He rescues the neediest element of society—abandoned, abused, or otherwise forsaken children—and uses his wealth to house them here, complete with the best teachers and counselors in England.” He nudged a plastic baseball bat out of the way with his foot. “Patrick, how many children have passed through this home?”
“Over the years? About three thousand, I would guess.”
More signs of children cropped up—three wooden letter blocks, a jump rope, and an assortment of scattered puzzle pieces. Billy shook his head in wonder. “You’ve helped three thousand orphans? That’s awesome!”
“Well, orphans and displaced children.” Patrick stopped at an intersection to another hallway. “My motivations aren’t altogether altruistic, William. My wife and I were bereft of children, so we filled that void in our own way. Just before she died, she made me promise to continue our ministry. I told her that heaven and earth would have to collapse before I’d abandon the little ones.”
Patrick turned to his right and walked quickly through a narrow corridor that signaled a sudden change in the house’s architecture. With a lower ceiling and rough plastered walls, it seemed older and less polished. He picked up a flashlight and an oil lamp from a shelf along the way and stopped at an old oaken door, the end of the hallway. He handed the lights to the professor, then pulled an old-fashioned brass key from his pocket and inserted it into a hole under an octagon-shaped knob.
After turning the key, Patrick raised his hand. “Before I open this door, I want to warn you not to touch anything. This part of the castle is essentially the original building, dating from the fifth century. It has been restored only once in all those years, so even the walls are fragile. Please walk softly and take care.”
Patrick turned the ornate knob and pulled. The massive door creaked open, revealing another corridor with an even lower ceiling. The professor flicked on the flashlight and pointed the beam into the dim hallway. Patrick set a match to the lamp’s wick, then ducked his head and entered the passage. The others followed, also ducking as they trailed the flickering lamp.
The gray stone ceiling was about six feet high, with thick wooden beams that bent toward the floor here and there, as if ready to splinter under their load. As Billy walked, he detected a strange odor in the air, like the smell of the forest on an autumn day when the fallen leaves are just beginning to deteriorate.
The fragrance of nature blended with something else, maybe rusting metal or some other chemical corrosion that years of solitude had birthed. Billy hoped to see suits of armor lining the walls and standing at attention, but no ghosts of knights haunted these ruins, at least not in their silvery, castoff shells.
The long corridor ended at a doorway that opened into a much larger room, dimly lit by sunshine filtering through an air vent in the vaulted ceiling high above. The skylight seemed roughly cut into the stone roof, a rectangle perhaps ten feet long and eight feet wide. Traces of soot stained its edges, evidence that it had once served as an exhaust port for fires that had heated the chamber an untold number of years ago.
Leaves had fallen throu
gh the opening and littered the floor, some crumbling to dust as the visitors stepped on them. The debris sprinkled a symmetric design, etched with a multi-pointed star in the center. Sand and crushed leaves filled each engraving, making the lines blend with the surrounding floor, muting the image.
Sir Patrick swept the area with his shoe. Within seconds the design became clearer, an eight-pointed compass with narrow spires stretching northeast, east, southeast, south, and so on. At the end of each spire, a basketball-sized circle enclosed an illustration.
Patrick knelt and blew the debris away from the lines in the northeast circle. He set the oil lamp at the edge and nodded at the image. “The creation of man.”
The simple etching displayed a man and a woman standing with a fruit-filled tree between them, and in the midst of the tree a miniature dragon perched on a branch, his eyes focused directly on the woman. At the edge of the circle, a string of strange words lined the inside of the arc. Billy squinted at the words. They seemed indecipherable, though some resembled English.
The professor stood at his side. “It’s Latin, William. It says, ‘In principio erat verbum et verbum erat apud deum et deus erat verbum,’ which means, ‘In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.’”
Bonnie knelt and rubbed her fingers across the impression, pausing briefly on the woman’s bare back. She looked up at Patrick. “Adam and Eve before the Fall?”
Sir Patrick nodded. “True innocence—undefiled, without even the memory of sin. You might even call it a holy naïveté.” He walked over to the eastern spire. “You could learn a great deal by analyzing these in depth, but we can’t afford to take the time. I’ll just show you each one as we make our way around the compass.” He stooped and blew the dust away from the circle, revealing two swords crossed in battle and under the swords, a bag of spilled coins. Two of the coins carried tiny portraits, one with a crown on his head and the other with long, flowing hair.
Billy and company followed Patrick from circle to circle. The southeast point held a drawing of two men, one taller than the other. The shorter man carried an axe with the sharp edge positioned at the taller man’s heels. The taller man held a mirror, and he gazed at himself, apparently unaware of the shorter man’s actions. Within the mirror, the reflection showed the face of a dragon.
Patrick walked by the southern circle, waving at it as he passed. “This one is best left covered. I have not cleared debris from it since I first viewed its image, and I shall not describe it to you. But I will tell you that it represents one of the deadliest enemies of men, and I mean ‘men’ in the gender sense, not as in ‘mankind.’”
Billy paused at the edge of the circle’s muddy covering. Years of dirt and rotted leaves had mixed with rain from the open ceiling. He swiped a bit of the mud away with his shoe, but all he could see was a bare foot in the dim light. He leaped past it and hurried on.
On the southwest circle, Patrick pointed out a feast scene, a rack of meat over a fire next to a table covered with piles of indistinguishable fruits and vegetables, yet only a single man sat at the table’s bounty while a child knelt begging at his feet.
The circle on the west side needed only a quick sweep to reveal a clear etching. A dragon spewed a stream of flames at a male figure so small that he seemed to be a child. The boy carried a short, thin sword, useless and pathetic against the monstrous dragon. A girl sat close by, watching the battle.
Billy shivered. He knew the image carried a profound message, yet he couldn’t figure out what it was. He just wanted to move on.
When they reached the northwest point, Patrick pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and scraped away a thick layer of damp silt. The smudged drawing showed a bridge spanning two mountains with a valley underneath. There was little detail, only the bare cliff walls and a valley floor teeming with a mass of haunting, forlorn faces intermixed with tiny, winged creatures.
Finally, at the north end of the compass, Patrick placed the lantern at the circle’s edge. Most of the debris had already been cleared, and when the professor highlighted the circle with his flashlight beam, the deep etchings sharpened. A man sat on a regal throne, a river gushing out from a hole under the base. A dozen crowns lay scattered around the man’s feet, hundreds of tiny worshipers bowed in reverence, and a child sat in his lap.
“Heaven?” Billy asked.
The professor aimed his flashlight at Billy’s chest. “We believe so, William. It resembles a paradise scene from the book of Revelation. It is the eighth circle, not part of the seven to which you will journey.” He lowered the beam and cast it on the other circles in turn. “Have you figured out what the other circles represent, if not heaven?”
Billy’s tongue suddenly dried out. The question seemed too easy, yet the answer caught in his throat. “Hell?”
Chapter 5
MERLIN’S WARNING
Perhaps not exactly hell,” the professor explained. “The circles are not the final lake of fire, you see—”
“Ahem! We shouldn’t recount terrifying stories yet, Merlin.” Sir Patrick waved his arm toward a circular table at the back of the room. “Since you were only a little late this morning, our noon meal can commence as planned. I would guess that a girl who just flew across the Atlantic Ocean must be starving.”
Bonnie placed her hand over her stomach. “I wasn’t going to ask, but I could eat a horse.”
“And since I already know about your wings, may I also suggest that you remove your backpack and make yourself more comfortable?”
Bonnie began slipping the straps off her shoulders. “Sure. That would be great.”
Patrick pulled a handheld radio to his lips and pressed a button on the side. “Markus, please tell the kitchen that we’re ready. Thank you.” He walked back to the wooden table and straightened an askew fork at one of the four perfectly placed settings of stoneware plates and stainless steel utensils.
Pulling out one chair, he gestured for everyone to sit. “Miss Silver, may I?”
Smiling at Billy, Bonnie slid into the chair and allowed Sir Patrick to seat her. She folded her hands in her lap, her silky hair falling in front of her shoulders. Billy sat across from her, while the professor pulled up his chair at Bonnie’s left and faced the chamber’s back wall of logs and stone. A cot sat against the wall next to a kneeling bench and a three-foot-tall wooden cross.
“Who sleeps here?” Billy asked.
Sir Patrick sat in his chair and pulled it up to the table. “That’s my bed.”
Bonnie leaned forward in her chair, making more room for her wings. “Why do you sleep here? It can’t be comfortable without heat in the winter.”
“With all the children coming and going, the bedrooms have new occupants on a monthly basis. At times I would give up my own bedroom and move my personal items from place to place. I decided it was easier just to camp out here. It’s a bit cold at times, but I am content. I have all I really need.”
A tall, thin man wearing a white uniform entered pushing a wheeled table that rattled with teacups, drinking glasses, and an assortment of carafes and bottles. On top he balanced four pizza boxes.
Sir Patrick moved the stacked pizzas to the table and placed his palm on top. Closing his eyes he prayed, “We thank you, Maker of all things, for the gift of nourishment. We know, as you stated yourself, that we live not by bread alone, but by every word that you speak. We humbly ask you to bless this delicious bounty. Amen.”
“Amen,” the others chorused.
Patrick slid the box off the top. “I did my research.” He set a pizza in front of each of his guests in turn. “Extra cheese for Bonnie, sausage for Billy, and mushrooms for Merlin.”
Billy flipped up his box lid and took in a long sniff. “All right!”
Bonnie opened her box and pulled out a slice. Long strings of melted cheese stretched from her hand to a greasy spot at the bottom of the box. “Thank you, Sir Patrick. What kind is yours?”
He lifted hi
s lid a crack and peeked inside. “A dangerous combination—goats’ eyes, camel’s tongue, and . . .” He glanced at each guest, a hint of mischief in his gaze, “earthworms!”
Bonnie’s eyes bulged just as she bit into her slice. Billy burst out laughing.
Sir Patrick threw the lid open. “Will you look at that? It’s pepperoni! They got my order wrong again!”
Billy picked one of the sausages from his pizza. “Looks like they put it on mine instead!” He tilted his head and lifted the morsel over his mouth. “One camel’s tongue down the hatch!”
Bonnie tried to chew and laugh at the same time, her face turning crimson as a string of cheese dangled over her chin.
Professor Hamilton winked at his two students. “It seems that when the postman delivered a box of maturity to Sir Patrick’s house, he was out hiding in the barn.”
Patrick raised a slice of pizza as though he were proposing a toast. “And may the crippling corpse of the sedentary curmudgeon never find me! My kids need me to stay young at heart.”
The four ate pizza and talked for a couple of hours, sipping soft drinks and tea while going over Billy’s and Bonnie’s life histories. The professor told of his academic career at Oxford, but Sir Patrick kept deflecting questions about his own past. He would just wave his hand and say, “Oh, I’ll tell you some other time.”
The patter of a late afternoon shower interrupted their conversation. Raindrops found their way through the roof opening and dripped on the floor’s compass design, filtering through the sand and disappearing into an unseen drain. The diners, seated far from the exposed area, relaxed and listened to the cooling rain in comfort and silence.
Billy stretched his arms and let out a yawn. Bonnie stood and extended her wings fully, joining in with a yawn of her own. Sir Patrick pulled a radio from his belt. “Markus, is Miss Silver’s bed prepared?”
A scratchy voice replied, “Yes, Sir Patrick.”