The Armageddon Conspiracy (59 page)

‘
Many Simonians and
Johannites pretended to become Christians but they were told: When
Jesus oppresses you then say:
We belong to
you.
But do not confess him in your hearts or deny the voice of
your Master, the high King of Light, for to the lying Messiah the
hidden is not revealed.
’

‘
What happened to Simon
Magus?’
Gresnick asked.

‘
When John the Baptist
was executed because of Jesus’ conspiracy, Simon knew he would be
the next target.
He fled – to Scotland.
Jesus then proclaimed
himself the Messiah, sickeningly claiming to be the one prophesied
by John the Baptist.
Simon struck back, using two of his secret
followers – Caiaphas, the High Priest of the Temple, and Pontius
Pilate, the Roman Governor.
Jesus was crucified on the mount of
Golgotha, the place of the Skull, but his body vanished after his
death.
Either it was spirited away by his followers, or Jehovah the
Demiurge caused it to vanish.
Whatever the case, the story caught
the world’s imagination and the abomination of Christianity took
root.
Simon, who returned to Judea after Jesus’ death, couldn’t
stop its rise and was eventually executed by Christian assassins,
with the same sword that struck off the head of the Baptist.
The
severed head was displayed on the same platter that John’s was once
placed on.
The head, the sword and the dish were preserved as holy
relics, the only objects valued by Gnostics.
The head is over
there, and Lucy has found the sword and dish.’

‘
But that’s not how
Simon Magus died,’ Gresnick said.
‘He had a confrontation with
Simon Peter in the Roman Forum in front of the Emperor Nero.
Simon
Magus levitated to demonstrate his magic powers, and Simon Peter
prayed to God to cast him down.
Simon Magus fell and died at the
Emperor’s feet.’

‘
That story was
invented,’ Sinclair said.
‘It symbolised the struggle between
Christianity and Gnosticism to become the official religion of the
Roman Empire.’

‘
There’s something I
don’t understand,’ Lucy said.
‘How did the sword and the dish end
up in England?’

‘
Caiaphas hid them in
the underground passages of the Temple.
The nine original Knights
Templar dug them up and eventually it was decided England was the
safest place to store them.
They were concealed in places connected
with the Arthurian legends.
Tintagel was where Arthur was
supposedly conceived, and the main cave in Cheddar Gorge was
supposedly where King Arthur and his ghost army lie sleeping, ready
to ride out to establish a new Camelot.’

‘
But why did the
Cathars and the Templars become so fascinated by the Arthurian
romances?’
Gresnick asked.
‘Why did they start linking Biblical
events with Celtic stories?’

‘
Some stories are
archetypal.
They have a pattern that repeats over and over again,
across different times and cultures.
The most archetypal story of
all is the Quest for the Holy Grail.
It maps almost exactly to what
was going on in Judea in the first century CE.

‘
In Lucy’s book, she
identified Judas as Mordred, Jesus as Arthur, John the Baptist as
Merlin, the twelve apostles as the Knights of the Round Table, full
of good intentions but suffering from their human limitations.
She
wasn’t sure about Guinevere.
Mary Magdalene, she
speculated.

‘
In fact, Jesus is
Mordred and Simon Magus is Arthur.
The Knights of the Round Table
are Cain’s original priesthood.
Salome is the enchantress Morgana.
Guinevere is Helena, Simon Magus’s lover.
Simon Peter, the future
first pope is Lancelot.
Once, he was Simon Magus’ right-hand man
before switching sides.
He and Helena had an affair.

‘
Camelot is the heaven
of the True God.
The forces that threaten to destroy it are the
temptations offered by Satan to lure souls away from the light.
The
Wasteland is the spiritual desolation of the material world.
The
catastrophic relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere shows how
lust can destroy the perfect kingdom, how souls are lured to their
doom by sex.
Arthur broods over Guinevere’s adultery and Camelot
falls apart, paralysed by a spiritual malaise.
Civil war breaks
out, and the only thing that can restore Camelot is a worthy knight
who can find the Holy Grail.
The Grail Quest is the arduous search
to restore lost purity, to return to the True God.

‘
We are both the Grail
Castle and the holy Knights who protect it.
Down the centuries,
we’ve been forced to live in the shadows to hide from our enemies,
so the Grail Castle has become a mystical, elusive place.
It’s an
epic journey to reach the Grail Castle because, to do so, you have
to achieve Gnosis.
That’s what Galahad, Perceval and Bors all
achieved; that’s why they were allowed to find the Holy Grail.
Outside is the Wasteland, the hell ruled by Satan.’

Lucy was amazed as she
listened to Sinclair.
In her mind, she was correcting all the
mistakes in her book.
At the start of her book, she quoted Jung who
was fascinated by the Grail all his life:
The stories of the Grail had been of the greatest importance
to me ever since I read them, at the age of fifteen, for the first
time.
I had an inkling that a great secret lay hidden behind those
stories
.
Lucy believed she had discovered
the secret.
Now, she realised, she’d scarcely begun to understand
what was going on.

‘
Was there a real King
Arthur?’
she asked.

‘
Arthur was a warrior
chieftain in what is now Scotland and he fought Angles and Saxon
invaders.
He was victorious, and the North of Britain retained its
Celtic identity.
Arthur went far north to the Highlands and
established Camelot.
It was built on a small island at the
confluence of three lochs, on the site where Eilean Donan castle
now stands.
The Isle of Avalon was the nearby Isle of Skye.
The
Battle of Camlann was fought at the Kyle of Lochalsh, the strip of
mainland opposite Skye.
Merlin was a Celtic Druid.
The whole story
was appropriated by the English and relocated to the southwest of
England.
The Welsh and the French also have versions.’

Sinclair gazed at his watch.
‘There’s
not much time left.
Now we must prove once and for all that we can
trust you, Lucy.’

‘
What do you
mean?’

‘
Do you know how many
seats are placed at the Round Table?’

‘
Thirteen.
Twelve
knights and King Arthur.’

‘
Indeed.
The Round
Table is the counterpart of the table of the Last Supper; thirteen
places – twelve apostles and Jesus.
One of the apostles is a
traitor –
Judas
.
In
the Gnostic version, Simon Magus replaces Jesus and Jesus replaces
Judas.
But a traitor’s seat always remains.’

‘
The Siege Perilous,’
Lucy said.

‘
That’s right: the
Siege Perilous, the perilous seat, the Judas Seat.
When the Round
Table met, one of the knights had to remain standing because only
the purest of knights could sit in the Judas Seat.
Only one knight
fitted the bill – Galahad, the purest knight of all.’
Sinclair
pointed at his version of the Round Table.
‘We have our Judas Seat
too, or should I say
Jesus
Seat
.
All the chairs are black bar that
one, which is red.
Anyone with impure motives who sits in that seat
will die.
We don’t know how it works, but it does.
Any traitors,
liars who haven’t confessed their lies, those who play others
false, will perish if they sit there.
In Dante’s
Inferno
, the lowest
circles, those closest to Satan, are where traitors are consigned.
In the final, deepest circle, the ninth circle, are Judas, Cassius
and Brutus, the three greatest traitors of them all.
Except Judas
shouldn’t be there at all.
It ought to be Jesus.

‘
Now, we’ll all take
our turn in the seat, to prove that we are who we say we are, that
our hearts are true.’

Sinclair sat down on the red chair
without mishap, followed by each of his twelve companions.
Morson
took his turn, then each of his soldiers.

As Lucy watched, she wondered what
would happen to the soldier who helped them escape from the chapel
at Cadbury.
She could see him near the back of the line.
As he got
closer, he looked increasingly like a trapped animal.
At the last
moment, he collapsed onto the floor, clutching his stomach.

‘
Behold the traitor,’
Sinclair shouted.
‘Force him into the seat.’

The man was grabbed by three soldiers
and pushed into the seat.
As soon as they let go, the seat
collapsed beneath the man, a section of flooring opening up.
A
livid flame soared up through the gap in the floor.
After the
screaming stopped, a smell of burning flesh spread round the hall.
The seat reappeared, in pristine condition.

‘
Now you,’ Sinclair
said to Lucy.

‘
I’m not doing
it.’

‘
Above all, we must be
sure of you.
If you’ve always been pure of heart, nothing will harm
you.’

Lucy didn’t move.
She didn’t want to go
anywhere near that seat.

Sinclair gave a signal to Morson.
The
sergeant pointed his pistol at Lucy.

‘
I told you we’d
discover if you were a False Messiah.
You know I won’t hesitate to
shoot if you don’t prove yourself.’

‘
Sit down, Lucy,’
Gresnick urged.
‘You’ll be fine.’

Fine?
That seat was one step from an
inferno.
Lucy stared at Morson.
His face was hard, his eyes
unblinking.
He looked exactly like Captain Kruger had at the
convent.
He would definitely pull the trigger.

She sat down.
Nothing
happened.
Nothing
.
She got up and walked away.

‘
Thanks be to God,’
Sinclair said then turned towards James.
‘Now, what about the man
who claims to love you.
Are you pure of heart, Mr Vernon?
Are you
worthy of Lucy’s love?
Or are you a traitor?’

Lucy got the impression James was doing
everything in his power not to look at her.
He took a few steps
towards the seat then halted.

‘
I can’t do
it.’

‘
I knew it,’ Gresnick
shouted.
‘He sabotaged the rope bridge.
He tried to murder you,
Lucy.’

James stood there open-mouthed, unable
to respond.

Lucy was sickened.
Some things you’ll
stake your life on, like the unconditional love of your parents.
They’re the foundations of your life.
Everything else may collapse
around you, but not those.
James had joined her parents as one of
her foundations.
Now, they had all collapsed.

‘
You disgust me,’
Morson snapped at James, ‘but you’re not going to die just yet.
We
have other plans for you.’

‘
They ought to force
you to sit, you bastard,’ Gresnick snarled.
He lunged towards
James, but was dragged away.