The Armageddon Conspiracy (61 page)

She kicked up to the surface, clutching
the Grail.
As she clambered out of the lake, everyone rushed
towards her.

‘
My God, she’s got it,’
Sinclair yelled.

She stood up and pulled off her
blindfold.
In her hand, she had a silver chalice, radiating light,
making her skin translucent.
She’d never seen anything so
beautiful.
Soon, all the others had joined Sinclair.
They stared at
her as she stood there at the edge of the lake in the snow, in the
eerie glow of the Grail.
They kept staring.

It was impossible, yet it was true: she
was holding the Holy Grail.

77

‘
G
ive it to me.’
Sinclair didn’t take his eyes off the Grail for a
moment.

Lucy handed it over, oddly relieved.
The world had desperately sought this object for centuries.
Now
she’d found it, and, because of that, the world might end.
She
didn’t want anything to do with it.

Sinclair held it up and turned it round
to gaze at it from every angle.
‘Isn’t it strange?
So many people
have searched for this, believed in it, worshipped it.
All of our
problems would be solved, they thought.
Yet, this is a false grail,
a deliberate deception, our greatest trick.’

‘
What do you mean?’
Lucy was astonished.

Sinclair turned away and began leading
everyone towards Carbonek.

Lucy hurried after him.
‘But that
is
the
Grail.’

Sinclair gave a wry smile.
‘Since the
time of the Cathars, Gnostics have believed that the way for people
to escape the wheel of suffering is to solve the Grail mystery.
For
us, knowledge is everything.
Faith and good works count for
nothing.
Life is an intellectual process.
Salvation is for clever
people, not for those who have nothing but blind faith to offer.
Those who have achieved Gnosis know exactly what the Grail Question
represents.’

‘
But the Grail Question
is about showing compassion for those who suffer,’ Lucy said.
‘It’s
nothing more.’

‘
You’re wrong.
The
Grail Question is the most profound question of all.
It comes in
two forms.
The Grail Seeker is supposed to ask the wounded Grail
King,
What ails thee
?
To a Christian, it sounds like an expression of simple
compassion, just as you said, but to a Gnostic it means something
very different.
The Gnostic is asking if you are aware that
something is fundamentally wrong with the world.
What ails all of
us is that we are jailed souls on a prison planet.

‘
The second form of the
question, the main version, is the one Perceval failed to ask the
Grail King after he was first shown the procession of the Grail
Hallows:
Whom does the Grail
serve
?
To a Christian, the straightforward
answer is that it serves the Grail King.
For Gnostics it
means
do you believe in the True God or
Satan
?
The Grail and the Spear are
Christian symbols.
The Sword and the Dish are Gnostic symbols
relating to John the Baptist and Simon Magus.
Christ, the son of
the Creator, is the spawn of Satan, while John and Simon are
servants of the True God.

‘
The procession of the
Grail Hallows, in which the competing symbols are paraded side by
side, signifies that you are being offered the choice between two
radically different religions.
At the end of the ceremony, you must
make your choice.
The answer you give to the Grail Question
determines your fate.
A Gnostic answers that the Grail and the
Spear serve Satan while the Sword and the Dish serve the True God.
If you don’t give that answer, or if you fail to ask the question
in the first place, you’ll never again be admitted to the Grail
Castle.’

Lucy absorbed Sinclair’s words.
It
astounded her that one of the most sacred objects in the world
could be so misunderstood.
Far from being something you would want
to find – the culmination of your spiritual journey through life –
the Grail was something to be shunned.
The real idea behind it when
Chrétien de Troyes, Robert de Boron and Wolfram von Eschenbach
first wrote about it all those centuries ago was that you should
approach it with extreme caution, that it had a deceptive,
seductive, ever-changing quality.
Finally, the message was that you
should avoid it at all costs.

Each writer deliberately called it a
different thing – a dish, Christ’s chalice or a stone from heaven –
so that people would feel compelled to unlock its mystery, and,
hopefully, eventually find their way to the Grail Castle, the world
of Gnosticism, where they might at last discover the truth.

But the three Gnostic writers failed.
In their attempts to conceal their true intentions from the prying
eyes of the Inquisition, they added too many layers of code and
symbolism.
The mystery was made all but impenetrable.
Even many
Gnostics didn’t understand it.
It was a secret to which only the
elite had the key, and even they came perilously close to losing
it.

****

W
hen they got
back to Carbonek, Lucy was allowed to have a shower and change out
of her filthy uniform and into a fresh one.
Returning to the Great
Hall, she discovered a ceremony in progress.

The preserved head and bones of Simon
Magus had been placed on a gold table.
Sinclair and his twelve
knights were kneeling with their arms outstretched.
Morson and his
soldiers were at the back of the hall, while Gresnick and James
stood as far apart as possible.
James looked ill now, like a
ghost.

‘
We acknowledge
Baphomet, the Father of Wisdom,’ Sinclair and his men chanted.
‘He
is our guiding light, our inspiration.
He showed us the path to the
truth, to the kingdom of the True God.’

They stood up and Lucy noticed that
they had placed a large gold crucifix on the floor in front of
Baphomet.

‘
We abuse this obscene
cross,’ the knights cried.
‘We spit on it, trample on it, urinate
over it, smear excrement over it.
We renounce Jesus Christ, we
denounce Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is a false prophet, the arch
traitor, the progeny of Satan, rightfully killed by Baphomet’s
loyal servant Longinus.’

On either side of Baphomet, set back by
a few feet, were two more gold tables.
On one lay a spear that Lucy
hadn’t seen before, together with the newly found Holy Grail; on
the other were the sword and dish Lucy had retrieved from Tintagel
and Cheddar.

‘
Now, it’s time for the
ceremony of the Grail Hallows,’ Sinclair announced.

Two thrones, like those King Arthur
himself might have sat on, were brought out and Lucy was commanded
to sit on one.
Sinclair took the other.
The lights in the hall were
turned down until the only illumination came from two candelabra,
each containing about twenty candles.

The Grail Hallows were collected by
four of Sinclair’s knights who carried them in procession in a
circle around the preserved head then around each throne.
All four
objects glowed in an unearthly aquamarine colour, as though they
didn’t properly belong to this world but some higher plane.

Lucy found it incredible that she was
involved in this, a ceremony at least eight hundred years old,
revealing the ancient beliefs of the Cathars and the Knights
Templar.
History had come to life.

The knight holding the spear stopped in
front of Sinclair.
All of a sudden there was palpable tension.
What
the hell was happening?
The other three knights looked on.

‘
Do it,’ Sinclair
shouted and visibly braced himself.

The knight took a step forward and
plunged the spear into Sinclair’s inner thigh.

Oh,
God
.
Lucy couldn’t believe what she was
seeing.
Blood spurted out of Sinclair’s leg.
It looked as though
one of his main arteries had been sliced open.
The four knights
ignored him, went back to the gold tables and laid down the Grail
Hallows.

‘
Say the words,’
Sinclair barked at Lucy.

She gazed at his blood dripping onto
the floor and wanted to throw up.
Why had he done it?
He could die
in minutes.
Why was no one intervening?
She started to get to her
feet, intending to go over to help him, but he angrily shook his
head.

‘
Say it,’ he repeated.
‘For God’s sake.’

‘
I don’t know what you
want me to say.’

‘
Of course you
do.’

Lucy was horrified.
Everyone was
looking at her.
Then she remembered their earlier conversation.
He
was prompting her to ask the Grail Question, wasn’t he?
‘What ails
thee?’
she asked hesitantly, the words echoing in the great
hall.

‘
This false world,
this
hell
, ails
me,’ Sinclair answered.
‘This world was created by the Father of
Lies, the Prince of Darkness.’
He gritted his teeth.
More and more
blood streamed down his leg.

Two Grail questions, Sinclair said,
didn’t he?
‘Whom does the Grail serve?’
Lucy asked, and for a
moment she could genuinely imagine herself as Perceval, the
innocent fool.

‘
The false Grail serves
Satan.
The true Grail serves God.’

Lucy stood up.
For some reason, she was
certain there was a third question, one that had never been
revealed because it was the key to this secret ceremony.
‘Which is
the true Grail?’
she asked.

‘
You
must choose.’

Lucy turned away from Sinclair and
stared at the two gold tables.
If she chose the spear and chalice,
she’d be choosing Christianity over Gnosticism, and the opposite if
she chose the dish and the sword.

But Gnosticism was all
about hidden knowledge.
Even in the most sacred ceremony, the truth
would be concealed somehow.
Something was missing.
She was
convinced of it.
There had to be mystical, transcendent knowledge.
Was it possible that the true Grail wasn’t amongst these items?
That would be the final irony – the Grail Hallows didn’t contain
the Grail at all.
As soon as she thought of it, she knew she was
right.
That was the final secret.
The Grail was an Otherworldly
object.
It lay
beyond
.

Walking slowly, aware
of Sinclair’s eyes desperately on her, she went over to the copy of
Raphael’s mural.
She stared at it.
The Grail was somewhere in this
picture, the
true
Grail.

Placing her fingers against the lower
panels of the painting, she let her fingers run over the separate
panels.
Just as she reached her own panel at the centre of the
bottom row, she realised something wasn’t right.
There were fine
cuts down the sides of the panel.
As she pushed with her fingers,
the panel gave way.
A flap had been deliberately cut into it.
Carefully, she raised the flap.
Behind it was a small alcove, the
size of a large brick, with a carved wooden box wedged into it.
She
opened the door of the box and peered inside.
It contained a
beautiful emerald globe, the size of a paperweight.
Taking it, she
turned to face the others.