The steps ended at a short tunnel.
Vigor’s pace hurried.
From the hollow echo of the monsignor’s footsteps, Kat sensed that a larger cavern lay beyond. It was confirmed a moment later.
She stepped out onto a three-meter stone ledge. Their two lights cast wide swaths across the domed and vaulted space, stretching above and below. It must have once been a natural cavity in the granite, but a great undertaking had transformed it.
Kneeling, Kat ran her fingers along the stonework underfoot, precisely fitted blocks of raw marble. Straightening, Kat shone her flashlight to the sides and down.
Skilled craftsmen and engineers had built a series of twelve bricked tiers, descending from their perch and on down toward the distant floor. The space was roughly circular in shape. Each level below was smaller than the next, like a vast amphitheater…or an upside-down step pyramid.
She shone her light across the yawning space contained within these tiers.
It wasn’t empty.
Thick arches of granite spanned out from the tiered footings in a corkscrew pattern, supported by giant columns. Kat recognized the arches. Flying buttresses. Like those that supported Gothic cathedrals. In fact, the entire interior space had that lofty, weightless feeling of a church.
“This had to have been built by the Knights Templar,” Vigor said, moving along the tier. “Nothing like this has ever been seen. A sonata of geometry and engineering. A poem in stone. Gothic architecture at its most perfect.”
“A cathedral underground,” Kat mumbled, awed, reverential.
Vigor nodded. “But one built to worship history, art, and knowledge.” He swept his arm out.
But there was no need.
The stone framework served only one purpose, to support a convoluted maze of timber scaffolding. Shelves, rooms, ladders, and stairs. Glass glittered. Gold shone. It all held a storehouse of books, scrolls, texts, artifacts, statuary, and strange brass contraptions. Each step around seemed to open new vistas, like some vast M. C. Escher painting, impossible angles, dimensional contradictions supported by stone and timber.
“It’s a huge library,” Kat said.
“And museum, and storehouse, and gallery,” Vigor finished. He hurried to the side.
A stone table, like an altar, sat not far from the entry tunnel.
A leather-bound book spread open under glass…gold glass.
“I was afraid to touch it,” Vigor said. “But you can see fairly well through it.” He shone his light down upon the exposed pages.
Kat peered at the book. It was heavily decorated in oils. An illuminated manuscript. Tiny script flowed down the page. It appeared to be a list.
“I think this is the codex for the entire library,” Vigor said. “A ledger and filing system. But I can’t be sure.”
The monsignor’s palms hovered over the glass case, plainly fearful of touching it. They had seen the effects of such superconducting material. Kat stepped back. She noted that the entire complex glittered with similar glass. Even the walls of the tiers had plates of the glass dotted along them, embedded like windows, set like jewels.
What did it mean?
Vigor still bent over the book. “Here it lists in Latin ‘the Holy Stone of Saint Trophimus.’”
Kat glanced back to him for explanation.
“He was the saint who first brought Christianity to this area of France. It is said he had a visitation of Christ during a secret meeting of early Christians in a necropolis. Christ knelt on a sarcophagus and his imprint remained. The sarcophagus lid became a treasure, supposedly invoking the knowledge of Christ upon those who beheld it.” Vigor stared out at the vaulted cathedral of history. “It was thought lost forever. But it’s here. Like so much else.”
He waved back to the book. “Complete texts of forbidden gospels, not just the tattered fragments of those found near the Dead Sea. I saw four gospels listed. One I had never even heard before. The Brown Gospel of the Golden Hills. What might it contain? But most of all…” Vigor lifted his flashlight. “According to the codex, somewhere out there is stored the Mandylion.”
Kat frowned. “What’s that?”
“The true burial shroud of Christ, an artifact that predates the controversial Turin Shroud. It was taken from Edessa to Constantinople in the tenth century, but during periods of marauding, it vanished. Many suspected it ended up in the treasury of the Knights Templar.” Vigor nodded. “Out there lies the proof. And possibly the true face of Christ.”
Kat felt the weight of ages…all suspended in perfect geometry.
“One page,” Vigor mumbled.
Kat knew the monsignor was refering to the fact that all these wonders were listed on just one page of the leather-bound book—which appeared to have close to a thousand pages.
“What else might be found here?” Vigor said in a hushed voice.
“Have you explored all the way to the bottom?” Kat asked.
“Not yet. I went back up to fetch you.”
Kat headed to the narrow stairs that led from one tier to the next. “We should at least get a general layout of the space, then head back up.”
Vigor nodded, but he seemed reluctant to leave the book’s side.
Still, he followed Kat as she wound back and forth down the switch-backing stairs. She gazed up at one point. The entire edifice hung above her, suspended as much in time as space.
At last they reached the top of the last tier. A final set of stairs led to a flat floor, hemmed in by the last tier. The library did not extend below. All the treasure piled above, held suspended by a pair of giant arches, footed on the last tier.
Kat recognized the stone of these arches.
Not granite or marble.
Magnetite again.
Also, directly beneath the crossing of the arches, rising from the center of the floor, stood a waist-high column of magnetite, like a stone finger pointing up.
Kat descended more cautiously to the floor below. A lip of natural granite surrounded a thick glass floor. Gold glass. She didn’t step out on it. The brick walls around it also were embedded with mirrored plates of gold glass. Twelve she counted, the same as the number of tiers.
Vigor joined her.
Like Kat, he took in all these details, but both their focuses fixed to the lines of silver—probably pure platinum—that etched the floor. The image somehow fit as an ending to this long hunt. It depicted a twisted maze leading to a central rosette. The stubby pillar of magnetite rose from its center.
Kat studied the space: the maze, the arches of magnetite, the glass floor. It all reminded her of the tomb of Alexander, with its pyramid and reflective pool.