Stone of Fire: An ARKANE Thriller (Book 1)

Chapter 27

Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, Israel.
 May 24, 8.45am

      Jake and Morgan came out of a narrow passageway and entered the courtyard in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, an ancient building crushed into the dense heart of the Old City. The church seemed to be within the walls of the souk, stuffed amongst the traders and hawkers of the market, brimming with religious baubles and trinkets. Tourists milled around eating felafel and sweet harissa cakes. They exchanged shekels for Palestinian glass, Jerusalem t-shirts and statues of the Virgin Mary. Morgan thought that perhaps this was appropriate, for surely Jesus would have held his ministry amongst these people, the merchants, the hagglers, the real people of the city.
    Walking these streets was a bittersweet joy for Morgan as she felt the sun on her skin while the smells of the souk permeated the air about her. Despite its conflict, Jerusalem was her home and England would never arouse this passion in her, but there were also ghosts here. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Elian in the doorways of the teahouses, his broad smile welcoming, and she caught a glimpse of her father bent over a manuscript in the antique booksellers. This country had dashed her heart on the ancient rocks that were the foundations of the city. It thrived on a fast-moving river of bloodshed and violence and when she left, she had been sinking into its depths. But as the sunlight dappled the cobbled stones of the old city, just for a moment, she regretted leaving. It had beaten her then but Morgan knew her relationship with the city of God wasn’t over yet, and yet this could only be a fleeting visit. There wasn’t time to see her old friends or visit her father’s grave and she couldn’t even show Jake the secret spots of the city she loved. Instead she weaved between the tourist groups towards the entrance of the Holy Sepulchre.
    The church was a short walk from the Western Wall, the only part of the Jewish Temple left standing and sacred to the Jews. Behind that stood the Temple Mount topped by the golden Dome of the Rock mosque, sacred to Muslims. This was the heart of the three greatest religions on earth and yet, just outside the Old City walls, it wasn’t far to the shopping malls of Ben Yehuda street, a temple to consumerism.
     As usual, the small square in front of the Holy Sepulchre was packed full of tour groups, with guides holding umbrellas high, shouting to be heard. This was Christianity Grand Central and millions of the faithful came on pilgrimage here annually. Morgan led the way through the crowd, glancing back now and then to make sure Jake was still close.
    They entered the church in a haze of incense, a cloying sensory overload that made Morgan cough. She had been into the Holy Sepulchre many times as part of her psychology of religion degree. She had compared it to the clean, plain synagogue her Father had worshipped in, and wondered how the Christians could stand the smell for it made her feel heady and nauseous. She was briefly blinded until her eyes adjusted to the darkness, lit only by strings of candles and lamps. They joined the throng who gathered to touch the stone where Jesus’ body lay after the Crucifixion. People pushed and shoved each other, a far remove from what would be expected in such a holy place. There was no spiritual peace to be found here and it was loud and unbearably hot. Sticky hands pawed idols, cameras flashed and public displays of overt religiosity erupted everywhere. Pickpockets prowled the crowds, finding easy pickings from the rich Westerners who flocked from America and Europe on pilgrimage.
     “This way. We need to make our way to the Ethiopian Coptic section,” Morgan said as they walked past Calvary. The faces of the believers gathered there were lit with candles that burnt briefly for those they prayed for. Here they believed Christ suffered and died, and pilgrims lined up to put their hands down to touch the rock itself through a gold rimmed portal in the floor. The icons and paintings on the walls crowded in with their bloody images of the scourging and crucifixion of Jesus, denoted in horrific detail.
    Pilgrims knelt, kissing the ground and praying out loud. The whole place dripped with excess adoration, weeping women and pious priests. They all crowded towards where the body of Jesus had lain, the rock where he was crucified and the sepulcher where he was buried and rose from the dead. It was a study in human behavior to watch people worshipping, a competition in piety before their God. Morgan led Jake past the Stone of Anointing, hung with ornate candleholders like canopic jars suspended over the praying pilgrims.
     At last they were in the center of the church where Christian denominations were thrust uncomfortably together. It may have been the center of Christianity, but Morgan knew that within the church the different branches hated each other. The throne of the Jerusalem Patriarch of the Orthodox Church buttressed against the Shrine of the Armenians and the marble urn in the middle of the church, marking the Omphalos, the center of the Christian world. This was a highly political building, a mish-mash of theology and architecture composed of Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, the breakaway Armenian church and the Ethiopian Coptics. United in believing that Jesus died and rose again, most other aspects of faith were still debated between them. Grievances between the groups caused blows to be exchanged in the one of the holiest places in Christendom.
    The first century tomb was adjacent to the Syrian chapel in the east end of the church, behind the Holy Sepulchre. Back there was also a tiny Coptic chapel, just big enough for one monk to maintain constant vigilance and prayer.
     “This isn’t even the real tomb of Jesus,” Morgan said. “Just the place that Helena, wife of the Emperor Constantine, decided would be the tomb in 300AD. The shrine was built then and continues to be a place of faith, but it’s really based on political lies.”
     Jake looked surprised. He’d been to Israel before but his role in ARKANE was generally on the action side rather than research. “How come this isn’t the real place? Surely they could have got that right?”
     “Jesus wasn’t famous when he died,” Morgan explained. “He was just another criminal to the Romans, another failed Messianic pretender to the Jews, so the place wasn’t marked. It’s wrong because it’s inside the walled city for a start, and crucifixions would not have occurred here. They were held outside the gates, where the unclean bodies were left to rot on the crosses and stoning could occur in the quarries below.”
     “So where’s the real crucifixion site?” asked Jake, genuinely interested.
     “The most likely place for Golgotha is now the main bus station in Jerusalem.”
     “Seriously? That’s hardly an appropriate place for the spiritual center of the Church.”
     “I don’t know.” Morgan gestured at the crowds. “This is a crazy place and perhaps a dirty bus terminal is fitting as a transit center for the crossroads of humanity. If you look up to the white cliffs above the station, you can still see the holes of the eyes in the rock walls. The place of the skull eroded and chiseled by two thousand years of weathering.”
     “So why is all this here?” questioned Jake, pointing around them to the excess material spirituality.
     Morgan shrugged. “Tradition I suppose, and a turf battle over this ground that has raged for generations. But there is a place outside the walls, a garden that some believe is Gethsemane where Jesus spent his last night crying out to God.”
     “Why’s that a more likely location?” Jake asked.
     “I don’t know if it is,” Morgan said, “but the olive trees there are thousands of years old and it’s still a place of meditation and peace. There’s also a rock-hewn tomb that is rumored to have been owned by Nicodemus the priest, with a stone rolled over its entrance. It could be the right place.”
     “You sound like you almost believe it yourself.” Jake said.
     “Of course not, but I’m fascinated with what others believe and why. These sites could all be false, but does it matter where the real place lies? Faith is in the heart.”
     Jake paused, looking through the crowds of people.
     “Jerusalem is one crazy place,” he said, “like a religious theme park. I’m sure many of these people are devotees but most seem like tourists, experience junkies snapping pictures and loading up with tacky icons. Plus, I can’t see anything to do with Pentecost here. It’s not like the Basilica in Venice.”
Morgan nodded.
     “The legend of Pentecost isn’t strong here. It’s celebrated as one of the festivals of the church but this place is all about Christ. His death and resurrection are venerated, not the Acts of the Apostles that came afterwards.”
     “So where do we look next?” Jake asked.
     “There’s no apostolic iconography here but I still think the Keeper can be found through the ancient tribe that lived and worked with the Apostle Philip in Ethiopia. This was their constant vigil and, after all, the Pentecost stone was meant to have been cut from the stone where Jesus rose from the dead. So, maybe it returned to the source. You wait here. I won’t be long.”
She strode off into the crowd.
     The Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus supposedly rose from the dead, was only big enough for a few people, so a constant line stood outside and the scalloped entrance was so low that pilgrims had to stoop to enter. Morgan walked past the faithful and went alone into the Coptic sanctuary behind the shrine. Largely ignored by the praying hordes, a single Coptic monk sat there with his Bible open, staring at it in meditative silence. He didn’t look up as she entered and Morgan thought the monks must be sick of being curiosities to the pilgrim-tourists who had been coming here daily for hundreds of years. She knelt by the altar, almost at his feet because the chapel was so small.
     “Abba,” she said, using the term of respect for a father of the church. He looked at her, a question in his eyes. Reaching into her pocket, she brought out the plain, rough-hewn stone of St James and held it before him. He gasped and then spoke swiftly in Geez, the Ethiopian language, exclaiming something and pointing to the door. Morgan tried to make sense of it.
     “I need to speak to the head of the Coptics here. Is that possible?”
     He pointed again, seeming to indicate that he could not leave his post but encouraging her to go and speak with his people. The stone must be here. Back outside, Jake was staring at the lines of pilgrims. She pulled him away.
“Come on, we need to get onto the roof. He definitely recognized the stone. Let’s get out of here and into the fresh air.”
     They found the way up to the roof from the courtyard of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, and climbed the roughly hewn stone steps into the home of the Ethiopian Coptic Church in Jerusalem, an incongruous village of monastic cells known as Deir el Sultan. A strong faith sustained the little community despite the poor conditions and meager resources. Morgan looked around her. Huts with low doorways were built above the chapel of St Helena, one of the oldest parts of the church where the monks and a few nuns kept their stake alive in the holy place, as close as they could get to the heart of Christendom. She knew that there was a small chapel dedicated to the Archangel Michael up there which might hold information about the stone.
     An old nun sat on a metal backed chair in a patch of sunlight, leaning against the side of one of the rotund shrines. She seemed to just be sitting, perhaps in prayer but certainly enjoying the sun. Simple pleasures were still to be relished even this close to God. She pointed above and behind them, clearly accustomed to directing pilgrims to the chapel for prayer or holy tourism. Morgan and Jake turned to see rickety stairs that led up to the Coptic chapel, badly in need of repair. The Ethiopian Church, although ancient, had never been wealthy like the Roman Catholics. They were mostly a forgotten people to the rest of the Christian world.
     They walked up and entered the little shrine. Although the chapel was poor, it was rich in colorful paintings from the story of Solomon and Sheba, central to the Ethiopian traditions. The bright red of the Patriarch’s chair, the deep brown of the lattice of the holy screen and the paintings on the wall achieved a more celebratory atmosphere than the Sepulchre below them. Fresh air also blew through the space, making it inviting and a welcome break from the incense overload they had escaped. A monk knelt by the altar, a vital middle-aged man, ebony skin highlighted by his bright saffron robes. He rose to meet them, greeting them with a smile of welcome.
“We’re closed for private prayer at this time, but can I help you?”
     His voice was deep and sonorous, a touch of an accent to his clearly educated English. Morgan pulled out the stone of James.
     “We’re looking for another stone similar to this. It belonged to the Apostle Philip and we think it might be hidden by the Ethiopian Church.”
     The monk reached behind them and closed the doors to the chapel, locking them in place. He ushered them further in towards the altar.
“There have been rumors that the time has come for the stones to be revealed again. I’ve heard from my brothers of deaths among the Keepers and now you are here.”
His eyes betrayed his suspicions.
     “There have been deaths but not at our hands,” Morgan explained. “But there are men coming who want the stones and will continue to kill for them. If we take the stone, we can lead them away from you.”
     The monk sat down. “Why should I trust you?”
     Morgan opened her shirt at the neck to reveal her own stone.
     “I am a Keeper, a holder of the stone as you are.”
     The man sighed, his body sagging as the tension left him.
     “Our stone has been passed down from monk to monk for generations. It was brought back here a few hundred years ago, and it has remained since in this shrine. I am the present day Keeper but if you take it now, we will lose this final relic of the Apostles.”
     Morgan lent in towards him, her voice gentle.
     “But if we don’t take it now, it will be stolen from you by force and some of your people may be hurt. We’re being followed by men who will not rest until they have all the stones. I promise that we’ll protect it with the others.”
As she spoke the words, Morgan felt a twinge of unease. Her promise rang false when she considered she was planning to give the stones to Everett, but part of her wanted to find a way to save her family as well as preventing the sacred talismans from being used for evil.
     She felt the monk’s gaze on her, his eyes seeing her true motivation, but then he nodded.
     “There was a prophecy passed down with the stone, that in the end times the twelve would be together again, as they were at Pentecost. A band of men bonded by the death and resurrection of our Lord dispersed to all the ends of the known world. The only remembrance of their brotherhood was the stones. Philip, who preached among us, gave it to the first Patriarch when he left to return to Jerusalem. Perhaps it is fitting that you take it now, and reunite the twelve again. I do not want to bring violence to this place and my faith is in the unseen, not a piece of rock.”
     Jake had been quietly observing them, taking in the paintings on the walls, but now he spoke.
“What do you believe about the stones Father? Do they really have power?”
     “If the legend is true, then this stone is from the tomb where Jesus Christ rose from the dead. The resurrection is the miracle I live my life by but miracles happen every day, my son, and God does not need rocks to perform them. But the power of myth is strong and there are those who seek earthly power. Such talismans can wield authority, so take our piece and protect it with the others.”
     He rose and went to the altar behind the lattice, patterns of the sun through the skylight forming a shining nimbus around him. He pulled out a tiny leather satchel from beneath the altar and handed it to Morgan.
     “This is the stone of Philip. I give it to you as a Keeper of the stones of the twelve. Protect it, and go with God.”
     Morgan took it with reverence and they left him standing there in the ancient Coptic church, a proud religion in the heart of sacred Jerusalem. As they walked away through the twisted streets of the Old City, Morgan said, “I’m torn, Jake. I feel as if these stones have been entrusted to me as a Keeper to protect them and keep them safe. But then I have to give them up to save Faye in only a few days’ time. How can I do both?”
     Jake turned, his eyes shaded by the dark sunglasses he wore against the bright sun. “Maybe the choice will be made for you.”

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