The Lazarus Prophecy Read Online Free PDF

believing they fulfilled. They were further past their sell-by date than priests who performed exorcisms. Their only saving grace was that they existed in secrecy. They were not, at least, a public liability to the Church they thought they served. He’d been told to be gentle with them. He still intended to try.
    â€˜Modern thinking on Lazarus is that he never died,’ he said.
    â€˜That’s heresy,’ Brother Philip said.
    â€˜Mistakes are still made concerning the vital signs. Even in hospitals, mistakes are made. We’ve all read stories about people waking up on mortuary slabs. Sometimes a pulse is difficult to detect. Did you not find that with Brother Simon, before he perished?’
    â€˜We did,’ Brother Dominic said. ‘We thought twice that he had been taken from us. We knew for certain he was dead only when the cold rigor of his corpse proved itself to us.’
    â€˜Lazarus was probably afflicted by a condition that rendered him comatose. He was wrongly believed to have died. Early mortality was much more common then and most illness went completely undiagnosed. I’m talking about a time when a tooth abscess was a death sentence. He was declared dead and regained consciousness four days later.’
    The three men before him stared at him silently. Finally, it was Brother Philip who spoke. He said, ‘Lazarus was a sinner, judged before God and found wanting.’
    â€˜Yes, the Cardinal told me,’ Cantrell said. ‘And the real miracle was not that Christ returned him from death, but that he delivered him from hell.’
    â€˜From which region he delivered a warning for mankind,’ Brother Philip said.
    â€˜Commonly known as the Lazarus Prophecy,’ Cantrell said. He chuckled, ‘or uncommonly known, since it’s been kept such a secret for so long.’
    Brother Stephen tilted his head to one side. He raised a hand and stroked his chin between forefinger and thumb. ‘What would it take,’ he said, ‘to convince a sceptic?’
    â€˜Something you cannot provide,’ Cantrell said. ‘I’d require tangible proof.’
    Brother Stephen stood. He walked over to a narrow door Cantrell had not really noticed until that moment. It was positioned in a part of the room in shadow. The monk opened the door and stood back from it. It gave on to a narrow set of ascending steps that spiraled steeply to the right and disappeared in darkness. He produced a large key and held it out.
    â€˜Your proof resides in a locked room at the top of the stairs,’ he said. ‘The steps are steep and there are eighty of them but you are unencumbered by priestly vestments, Father Cantrell. You are attired for exercise and you look formidably fit.’
    Cantrell rose and walked across to the open door. He looked at the steps. He plucked the key from the monk’s fingers and examined it. It was brass and tarnished and looked as though the mechanism for which it was made would be old and crude and sturdy. He said, ‘Riddles are inappropriate to the gravity of the moment. I have neither the time nor the inclination for games.’
    â€˜It’s no game,’ Brother Philip said from behind him. ‘We could not be more serious in what we strive to accomplish.’
    â€˜Very well,’ Cantrell said. He strode towards the open door. Then he hesitated.
    â€˜There is but the one route and the one destination,’ Brother Philip said. ‘The way is dark but you cannot get lost.’
    His two brethren laughed at Brother Philip’s levity. Cantrell thought it probably uncharacteristic. He didn’t think the remark remotely funny. He turned and crossed the room and reached into the arch shaped corridor for a lit taper from one of the wall sconces. Then with that between the fingers of his right hand and with the key held in his left, he walked back and went through the door and began to ascend the stone spiral of the