Crypt of the Elders

Hagia Sophia Underground

Istanbul, Turkey

19 March 2010

The stone steps had the same grooved wear as the passageway earlier. In this case, though, the steps were steeper and shorter. Lourds struggled to keep his balance as he went down. The staircase also corkscrewed and filled his head with thoughts of premature burial. He forced himself to focus on the curiosity and certainty that had brought him to this place.

‘Is it getting hard to breathe?’ Cleena asked.

‘The air contains more moisture,’ Lourds told her. ‘Just take normal breaths and you’ll be fine.’ But the confined space was getting to him as well.

Finally, they came to the end of the torturous corkscrew staircase and stepped into a square room. The discomfort Lourds felt was extinguished as soon as he laid his eyes upon the library shelves that covered one wall. Dusty journals filled the shelves in neat rows.

Unbidden, drawn by his excitement, Lourds approached the shelves. He shone the flashlight along the spines and saw names and dates handsomely lettered there. They went back hundreds of years.

‘Those are the journals of the Elders who occupied this room all their lives,’ Joachim said.

‘How far back do they go?’ Lourds asked hoarsely.

Joachim came to stand beside him. ‘To the beginning.’

‘Of the church?’ If that was the case, the shelves contained at least sixteen hundred years of history.

‘To the time of John on Patmos Island.’

That knowledge halted Lourds for a moment as he realized how much information lay practically at his fingertips.

‘May I?’ He gestured to the shelves.

‘Those books don’t tell us the whereabouts of the Joy Scroll.’

Without a word, Olympia stepped close and took down one of the books. She handled it gently, as if it might disintegrate.

‘You had these down here all this time, Joachim?’ Her voice was hushed and tight with awe. ‘Do you know what I would have given to have been able to study these? Do you know the information that is probably contained within these books?’

‘The brothers only wrote benedictions to God,’ Joachim replied. ‘Father didn’t ask me to be a librarian. He asked me to keep the Joy Scroll safe. The monks didn’t bother themselves with the secular world.’

‘That doesn’t matter.’ Carefully, Olympia leafed through the book. ‘Any contact they had with the world outside this place would have rubbed off on them. No matter what you think, there will be artefacts of everyday life reflected in passages in these books.’

‘That’s why archaeologists are now studying the literature of the past.’ Lourds crossed over to stand behind Olympia. ‘Until the last few years, the study of novels and poetry and the like for historical detail hadn’t been recognized as a hard science.’

‘Look at this, Thomas.’ Olympia kept turning pages and her fascination grew.

Lourds felt the same way, and his mind was totally captivated by the neat lines of script that crawled across the pages. The volume Olympia held was written in Ancient Greek and detailed a day trip around Patmos Island by a new monk.

‘Can you imagine the wealth of knowledge contained within these pages?’ Olympia asked in hushed tones.

‘I can.’ Lourds glanced over his shoulder at Joachim. ‘Are there any journals here written by John of Patmos?’

‘No.’ Joachim’s voice was short. ‘Professor Lourds, I have to remind you that we came here to find the Joy Scroll. We cannot afford to waste time. You already know others are searching for it as well.’

Frustrated, Lourds swallowed his curiosity. ‘Perhaps there’s something in these books you have missed. If we could find the volumes that were written by the monks during the time of Constantine, maybe we could learn more about the scroll’s location.’

Joachim’s eyes narrowed. ‘Only a short time ago, you told me you could find the scroll’s hiding place by seeing the stone where the rubbing was taken. Was that the truth?’

Reluctantly, Lourds nodded.

‘The stone is over here.’ Joachim directed his flashlight to a corner of the room.

Despite the bright halogen beam, Lourds had a hard time spotting the engraving on the stone. The work was skilled and delicate, done by a true craftsman. If Joachim had not pointed out the stone, if the light had not fallen just so, he would never have noticed it. The curiosity about his hypothesis grew strong enough to draw him from the library shelves, filled with the thoughts of the men who had followed John of Patmos’s final instructions.

The fate of the world, Lourds reminded himself, steeling himself to walk away. In the end, he didn’t think the situation would be anything so weighty, but the possibility of finding a document written by one of Christ’s twelve apostles was a magical elixir that made his blood sing. He crossed the room, took off his backpack and stored it next to the wall, then knelt in front of the stone. He ran his fingers across the engraving. The depth was no more than a fraction of an inch, hardly noticeable. He reached into his backpack and took out a pad of paper and writing utensils. A skilled stonemason had built the wall. The stones were of uneven size, but they’d been carefully mortared together. Lourds ran his hand along the wall and felt the smoothness, noting that the man must have polished the stone. No rough surfaces remained.

‘A lot of time went into the construction of this place,’ he commented.

‘After the brothers took their vows to protect the Joy Scroll, they didn’t leave here.’ Joachim knelt next to Lourds.

‘That’s a hefty price to pay.’

‘I know.’

‘Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do if – when – we find the Joy Scroll?’

‘Protect it.’

‘Even if it means spending the rest of your life locked away from the world in a room like this?’

Joachim didn’t hesitate. ‘Even if that were so.’

Lourds fitted a blank piece of paper over the stone.

‘What are you doing?’ Joachim asked.

‘Taking a rubbing.’ Lourds selected a piece of charcoal from his kit and began gently rubbing it over the paper. The engraving on the stone started coming to life immediately.

‘Why?’

‘To match it against the one in the book. Have you done that?’

Joachim was silent for a moment, then shook his head. ‘I haven’t. We already have a copy of the rubbing and it told us nothing.’

‘Does Qayin know where this stone is?’

‘No, he doesn’t. And if he did, what would it matter?’

Lourds took his fresh rubbing and matched it against the one in the book he’d got from Qayin. ‘Can you hold the book for me?’

Joachim took the book.

‘Hold the book so the page with the rubbing hangs down by itself,’ Lourds instructed. Joachim did so. By that time the others had all come around to watch what he was doing. Lourds folded the new rubbing so that it fitted over the one in the book. Then he held his flashlight behind the papers so that both were illuminated. When he had them lined up, they matched exactly.

He grinned. ‘Looks like the same stone to me.’

‘That wasn’t necessary.’

Lourds rummaged in his backpack for a digital camera. ‘Of course it was. Empirical evidence is always important. Especially when you’re saving the world.’

‘You still don’t believe.’

‘Have you stopped to think that maybe I’m able to read that language because I’m not a believer? I’m not looking for the same things you are. I don’t have preconceived notions about what we’re supposed to find and how we’re supposed to find it. I’ve got a more open mind about what we’re looking for.’

Joachim didn’t say anything.

‘One thing I do believe is that I’m going to get you the answers that you haven’t had in over eight hundred years. Now hold that flashlight on this stone for me.’