Tales of the Knights Templar Read Online Free PDF

fell away to reveal the object locked away inside.
    It was a severed human head.
    The head was that of a man. It was gaunt and bearded, the eyes closed, the skin sunburned and weathered to the coarseness of leather. Staring hard, Thierry wondered what power or charm could have kept it thus incorrupt. Even as he stared in bemused astonishment, the closed eyelids quivered and retracted.
    Dark eyes stared wide, alight with the fires of some remote inner vision. The bearded lips writhed in an effort to speak. Thierry strained forward. A dry whisper made itself heard in the shadows of the vault.
    Even now the ax is laid to the roots of the trees,
murmured the head,
so that any tree which fails to produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
    It was a passage Thierry knew from Scripture. Hearing the words, he realized the identity of the speaker. He stared in awe, knowing that in this severed head he beheld all that was left on earth of the man once known as John the Baptist.
    Even as the prophetic import of this discovery sank into his mind, a huge shadow fell across his shoulder from behind. Thierry seized his sword and spun around. Out of the brazen fabric of the floor a noisome cloud of vapors was rising. Still growing and expanding, the cloud soared toward the roof. Following its progress as it rose, Thierry suddenly found himself gazing up into two compound clusters of hungry, lambent eyes.
    Each eye contained a pupil of fire. Faceted one to another, they glittered like jewels of flame. A slot of a mouth gaped open like a furnace door, exposing a long red gullet armored on the inside with grinding scales. A tongue like a scourge flicked in and out between a double row of venom-dripping canine teeth.
    The creature’s fiery aspect proclaimed it one of the greater
djinn.
Snarling defiance, Thierry planted his feet in a fighter’s stance. Out of the depths of the creature’s smoldering bulk rose a sibilant peal of laughter that set the air quivering. A deep contralto voice, thick with fulsome melody, spoke from the roof, using a language of darkness that penetrated Thierry’s mind with forced comprehension.
    “Welcome, son of humankind,” it mocked. “Whatever treasure you came here seeking, be sure you’ve found more than you bargained for.”
    Thierry left the dais in a single fluid bound. Sword gripped high in both hands, he swung the blade around in a whistling arc aimed at where he thought the creature’s underbelly might be.
    The
djinn’
s response was a belch of flame and laughter that knocked him back on his haunches like a blast of cannon fire. Still brandishing his sword in front of him, Thierry said harshly, “By the Name that is above all names, I charge you to tell me how so sacred a relic as this comes to be guarded by so damnable a being as you!”
    The
djinn’s
glittering eyes burned brighter. “The City of Brass is my fortress. Whatever lies within its walls is mine to do with as I wish.”
    “Nevertheless,” said Thierry, “It was not always so. Answer my question, or I swear to you I will pronounce the Name by which you suffer.”
    The
djinn
gave a malevolent hiss. “It will take more than the speaking of a name to save you, mortal.”
    “Perhaps,” Thierry agreed stonily, “but it will cost you a painful reminder of the strength of the divine wrath.”
    The
djinn’s
multifaceted eyes hooded themselves for a moment. There was a bristling pause before it capitulated and began to speak.
    “The head of the Baptist was carried off into the desert by some of that prophet’s own followers. It was they who used divers mystic arts to keep it incorrupt, in order that it might continue to speak to them in this life. They believed that the Baptist was the One incarnate, and believed that the head itself held power to call down fire upon the world. Seeking refuge from that wrath, they wandered far and wide, and at last found the City of Brass here in the desert, where it had been