The Lazarus Prophecy Read Online Free PDF Page A

he was in was strewn with a thin carpeting of straw. There was no furniture and no decoration other than a heavy wooden cross hanging unadorned on the wall opposite the wall in which the door was hung.
    To his left, he saw there was an archway. It was to this that Brother Dominic gestured as he said, ‘Come.’
    The archway shaped the entrance to a corridor. It was long and lit along its length by tapers set in sconces on its walls. Cantrell had become aware of how cold it was in the building. He couldn’t see his breath, but it felt chilly enough in there to do so. It was silent apart from the sound of their footsteps echoing slightly as they progressed. He looked down and saw that Brother Dominic wore leather sandals over bare feet.
    The corridor opened onto a large and largely featureless room. Two men stood in it. They were elderly like Brother Dominic and, like him, they were gaunt looking and grim of expression, attired in the same coarse habit he wore. Their expressions turned hostile when they saw their visitor. One was almost entirely bald. The other had a head of white hair shorn close to the scalp. He was introduced as Brother Stephen. The bald monk was Brother Philip.
    They invited him to sit at a table equipped with a long bench to either side of it. He sat on one side and they sat on the other. There was no point, he thought, in observing non-confrontationalniceties when it came to the seating arrangements. He was there only to confront them.
    There was a pewter jug on the table on a beaten pewter tray with four beakers. Cantrell was thirsty after the climb to get there. He poured from the jug into one of the beakers and raised it to his lips. It was well-water, cold enough when he swallowed the first sip to possess a skein of ice.
    â€˜Is this all that remains of you, just the three?’
    They looked at one another. It was Brother Stephen who spoke. ‘We were seven,’ he said. ‘We were never to be fewer than seven.’
    â€˜Is seven the magic number, gentlemen?’
    â€˜There is no magic,’ Brother Philip said. ‘There are rituals and observations. There is prayer. At times in the history of our order it has been necessary to deploy some of our brethren. Seven was the number dictated by the Holy Father when we were charged with our mission.’
    â€˜That was a long time ago.’
    â€˜Mother Church was in her infancy,’ Brother Stephen said.
    â€˜A lot has changed since then,’ Cantrell said, thinking the words redundant before they left his mouth. Or were they? This was an audience who needed the obvious spelling out.
    â€˜The certainties don’t change,’ Brother Philip said, ‘the judgment of the Almighty, the miracle of the risen Christ.’
    Cantrell took another sip of water. He said, ‘the Lazarus Prophecy?’
    They just stared at him. The three wise monkeys, he thought to himself. He said, ‘What happened to the other four of your brethren? How is it you find yourselves under-strength?’
    â€˜We are not physically strong,’ Brother Dominic said. ‘The regime here is arduous. The fasting is necessary but it takes its toll on the body and we are beyond the reach of medical attention. There was an infection in the winter, a sort of influenza perhaps carried by the village boy who brings our provisions each month.
    â€˜It took two in December and another in January. We thought Brother Simon had beaten it, was rallying, but he relapsed and surrendered his life at the beginning of February.’
    Surrendered, Cantrell thought. These elderly fools thought they were soldiers of God, manning the frontline, carrying the fight through millennia to the great corporeal adversary of the Christian faith. It was pathetic, the degree of self-delusion they nourished. He might commit the sin of pride in his contempt for them. They committed it in the portentous self-importance of the role they deluded themselves into