Cathedral Read Online Free PDF

priest reappeared holding his candle in the darkness. "Come this way." He led them to a half-open door made of 34

    CATHEDRAL

    scrolled wrought iron in the rear of the altar. "This is the place we use."
    He looked at the two fugitives to see why they weren't moving toward it.
    "The crypt," he added as if to explain.
    "I know what it is. Everyone knows there's a crypt beneath an altar's sanctuary."
    "Yes," said Father Donnelly. "First place they always look. Come along."
    Flynn peered down the stone steps. A candle in an amber glass, apparently always kept burning, illuminated a wall and floor of white limestone. "Why is it I've not heard of this abbey as a place of safety before tonight?"
    The priest spoke softly, evenly. "You had no need of it before tonight."
    Typical priests' talk, thought Flynn. He turned to Maureen. She looked down the stairway, then at the priest. Her instincts, too, rebelled against entering the crypt. Yet her conditioned response was to do what the priest urged. She stepped toward the stairway and descended. Flynn glanced at the priest, then stepped through the doorway.
    Father Donnelly led them along the limestone wall past the tombs of the former abbots of Whitehorn Abbey. He stopped and opened the bronze door of one of the tombs marked Fr. Seamus Cahill, held up his candle, and entered the tomb. A wooden casket lay on a stone plinth in the middle of the chamber.
    Father Donnelly passed the candle to Flynn and raised the lid of the casket. Inside was a body wrapped in heavy winding sheets, the linen covered with fuzz of green mold. "Sticks and straw," he said. He reached into the casket and released a concealed catch, and the coffm bottom swung downward with the bogus mummy still affixed to it. "Yes, yes. Melodramatic for our age, but when it was conceived, it was necessary and quite common.
    Go on. Climb in. There's a staircase. See it? Follow the passageway at the bottom until you enter a chamber. Use your candle to light the way. There are more candles in the chamber."
    Flynn mounted the plinth and swung his legs over the 35

    NELSON DE MILLE

    side. His feet found the top step, and he stood in the casket. A dank, almost putrid smell rose out of the dark hole. He stared at Father Donnelly questioningly.
    "It's the entranceway to hell, my boy. Don't fear. You'll find friends down there."
    Flynn tried to smile at the joke, but an involuntary shudder ran up his spine. "I suppose we should be thanking you.
    "I suppose you should. But just hurry on now. I want to be in the refectory having breakfast when they arrive."
    Flynn took a few steps down as Father Donnelly helped Maureen up the plinth and over the side of the casket onto the first step. Flynn held her arm with one hand and held the candle high with the other. She avoided the wrapped figure as she descended.
    Father Donnelly pulled the casket floor up, then shut the lid and left the tomb, closing the bronze door behind him.
    Flynn held the candle out and followed the narrow, shoulder-width passageway for a distance of about fifty feet, grasping Maureen's hand behind him. He entered an open area and followed the wall to his right. He found randles in sconces spaced irregularly around the unhewn and unmortared stone walls and lit them, completing the circuit around the room. The air in the chamber was chilly, and he saw his own breath. He looked around slowly at the half-lit room. "Odd sort of place."
    Maureen wrapped herself in a gray blanket she had found and sat on a footstool. "What did you expect, Brian-a game room?"
    "Ah, I see you're feeling better."
    "I'm feeling terrible."
    He walked around the perimeter of the six-sided room. On one wall was a large Celtic cross, and under the cross was a small chest on a wooden stand. Flynn placed his hand on the dusty lid but didn't open it. He turned back to Maureen. "You trust him?"
    "He's a priest."
    "Priests are no different from other men."

    36

    CATHEDRAL

    "Of course they are."
    "We'll see."