The Serpent's Curse

  “None.”

  Ebner stole a look at the image, then lifted his eyes to her. “I shall join you—”

  “We shall both,” Cassa said.

  “No. See that Bern does not leave the machine. I will return by Sunday at dawn.” She breathed in the frigid air of the tower, then moved to the elevator, managing only in the final seconds to shake off her sense of imminent doom.

  “Der Hölle Rache,” she sang, “kocht in meinem Herzen!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Sergiev Posad

  Wade felt his guard go up the instant a tall bearded man in a stiff black hat and long robe strode over the monastery’s cobblestone court toward them. The Teutonic Knights began as a religious order. He knew enough of their history, and Boris’s story, to be cautious.

  “Ah, English,” the young man said with very little accent. “I can tell by your clothing. Welcome.”

  “American,” Roald said pleasantly. “But you’re right. We just arrived from London, where we bought these winter coats.”

  “So, I am a detective,” the man said with a bright laugh. “I am Brother Semyon. You wish a tour of Trinity Saint Sergius monastery? The last of today’s English-language tours will begin in approximately fifteen minutes. I will deliver it myself.” He spoke English easily and well. He handed them a map, which Darrell took.

  “Perfect. And are the old fifteenth- and sixteenth-century monks’ cells on the tour?” Wade asked, trying to sound as casual as his father.

  “We read online that you still have some of the old monks’ cells here,” Lily added. “We’d love to see them if we could.”

  The young monk’s smile began to fade. He looked them over, studying their faces methodically, lingering on Wade’s the longest, as if his brain were doing a quick calculation. “Unfortunately not . . . ,” he said.

  A man in civilian clothes strode across the cobblestones toward them. The young monk turned. “One moment, please,” he said softly to Roald. He went directly to the approaching man and stopped him with a raised hand. They spoke quietly to each other while the second man glanced over the monk’s shoulder at them.

  “Uh-oh,” Becca whispered as Wade turned his face away. “We’ve been outed again. Do you think they already know the relic we’re after?”

  Wade’s father put on a false smile. “Let’s not panic. Not yet. It may be nothing.”

  The young monk returned to them. “I am sorry, but foreign visitors must sign waivers first. This is policy, I’m afraid. We are a monastery of meditation and prayer.”

  “And the gentleman you spoke with?” said Roald, smiling. “He is . . . ?”

  “Alas, there exists a complex relationship between the monastery, the government, and their security at public sites,” the monk said. “Besides, it is perfectly true that some areas are not on view this time of day. There is no way otherwise, and it would be better to comply than to leave at this point. Please, sir,” he said to Roald directly, “I hope you understand and come with me. Children, remain here, won’t you? Sir, please do come with me.” Gesturing firmly ahead of him, he took hold of Roald’s elbow and directed him toward what appeared to be an administration building. The other man followed on their heels, leaving the children by themselves.

  “Oh, man,” said Darrell. “Now we’ve done it. Or, more accurately, Wade’s done it.”

  “I have not—”

  “Tagged,” Lily whispered. “I knew we were.”

  “Well, something’s up,” Becca said softly. “Monk or no monk, praying or not, this isn’t right. Why is some guy in a suit telling the monks how to run their place?”

  “Did you see the way his smile just died when we asked to see the old cells?” said Wade. “He knows exactly why we’re here. We can’t be this open with people, even religious people. I know that doesn’t sound right, but we can’t trust anyone.”

  He saw his father briefly in the doorway of the building, looking out at them. He did not use any finger signals, and Wade couldn’t be sure he had memorized the family code correctly anyway. Then a third man, an older monk, drew his father gently back inside.

  “Not again,” said Lily. “They’re taking your dad away?”

  No. Not again. Wade’s father was out a moment later, his forehead furrowed in a frown. “Sorry, kids, not today,” he said loudly.

  “Dad—” Wade started.

  “Shhh,” his father said. “We’re to go to the Saint John gate. Brother Semyon will meet us there. Darrell, do you still have the map?”

  Darrell flipped it open. “Back the way we came in from the parking lot. The Gateway Church of Saint John the Baptist.”

  “He’s helping us?” Wade asked as they headed back across the cobblestone court.

  “As much as he can. The security man is with the government. He doesn’t appear to suspect us, but he may have ties to the Red Brotherhood. Brother Semyon will try to get us to the oldest cells. He’s really risking a lot.”

  By the time they had crossed the courtyard, a bank of heavy gray clouds had moved in from the west. It was going to snow. Soon and hard, Wade thought. He pulled his cap low.

  They were only halfway through a thick arched doorway, which was more like a tunnel, when Brother Semyon appeared from the shadows. “We must hurry,” he whispered. “Our government friend is a bit thickheaded, but even he will check up if I do not return soon.”

  Wade’s father nodded. “Thank you for what you are doing.”

  “How did you know about us?” Becca asked.

  Brother Semyon turned to a door inside the tunnel. “The Guardians in Russia are known as the Circle of Athos. Surely you have heard the name Hans Novak?”

  “Of course. He was Nicolaus’s assistant,” said Lily.

  “Hans Novak was young, yet he spent his life protecting the Legacy. You—you four children—because you are young, have been called Novizhny, the new followers of Hans Novak.” He pronounced the word “no-VIHSH-nee.”

  “Cool,” said Darrell. “Novizhny. I told you things need to have names. Wade, write it down.”

  Brother Semyon smiled. “A friend of the Circle of Athos told me to expect you. I have been waiting for days.”

  “A friend?” said Wade’s father. “Do you mean Boris Volkov, from London?”

  “I do not know him. We have little time. This way. Come.”

  Brother Semyon led them through the door into a high-ceilinged room. Every inch of wall space was fixed with religious icons, frescos, and beaded and jeweled paintings.

  “These are the prizes of Russia,” he said, moving quickly. “But Saint Sergius chapels and ancient art are not important to you just now.” They entered a narrow stone corridor that was lit by fat candles set into niches in the wall at eye level. Because they had to walk in single file, Wade couldn’t see what they were approaching. It was a blank wall. The young monk turned to face them.

  Wade’s sense of alarm went up. “What’s going on?”

  The monk bowed his head. “The cells the tourists see are reconstructions. Back when there were many more of us in the Circle of Athos, we hid Maxim’s true cell behind a false wall.”

  He turned to the blank wall and pushed firmly at five blocks on it. They seemed five random blocks, until he stepped away and Wade saw that the blocks formed the shape of a large letter.

  M

  A moment later, the entire wall shifted backward into darkness.

  “Silence, please, from here on,” Brother Semyon said. Gathering the folds of his robe in one hand, he led them up a set of steep stairs that ran inside the monastery wall.

  Wade counted forty steps until they reached a level stone passage. It was narrow, although dim light from the end of the passage gave enough visibility to see that it ran forward twenty or thirty feet. A single wooden door was set into the wall on the left, the outer side of the monastery wall.

  “Maxim’s cell,” the monk said. He led them past a wrought-iron panel set against the passage wall. “It is nea
rly bare, as it was in the time when he occupied it.” Brother Semyon paused and stepped closer to them. “We members of the Circle are now very few in number. The Order and its Russian allies, the Red Brotherhood, have diminished our forces to a piteous handful. I have only become aware of the invocation of the Frombork Protocol, but my duty is to keep the great legacy of Copernicus from being reassembled. I leave you here to discover what you can.”

  “Don’t you know what the relic is or where it is?” Wade’s father asked.

  Brother Semyon shook his head firmly. “I am a Guardian of Guardians. My role here and now is to keep the Novizhny, and their father, safe. You are the hunters; I am your servant. The only thing I can say is that other than his bones, nothing belonging to Maxim exists here anymore, except for seven religious icons he is said to have painted in his last months.”

  He then pointed to a switch box on the wall. “Ring this when you wish to be released. Please do your work quickly.”

  “Released?” Wade’s father said. “What do you mean?”

  Reaching to his right, Brother Semyon pulled the iron panel closed and locked it on them. “I am obliged by the Circle of Athos to protect you. I alone will hear the bell. It rings in my cell. Hurry and do your work.” Moments later, he was gone.

  Breathing in slowly, Wade turned toward the single cell in the passage.

  Lily went up and tried the gate. “Okay, this is way against every rule. This is locked solid. The Circle of Athos is part of the Guardians. Brother Semyon says he is a Guardian. Do we believe him? Do we believe anyone? I’m kind of freaking out now.”

  “Calm down, Lily,” said Darrell, tapping the monastery map. “I’m already planning our way out of here.”

  Then Wade stepped down the hall and entered Maxim Grek’s tiny cell. “Everybody, get in here!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Lily stepped into Maxim Grek’s square cell, a tiny, cold, stone space that barely held the five of them.

  The room was completely featureless except for a high horizontal upper window, from which they could see the storm-clouded sky, and seven small icons, paintings on wood panels hanging on the inside wall.

  The images were plain, flat, and almost crudely painted, though the colors were brilliant and rich—red, gold, and green, with strokes of blue as deep as on the domes outside. The five men and two women wore halos—plain gold circles—behind their heads, and were shown in a variety of poses, some at labor and others at prayer.

  “Saints,” said Becca.

  “The backgrounds of all seven pictures seem to be the Saint Sergius monastery,” said Roald. “There’s the Red (Holy) Gate, the courtyard, and the older towers. The saints are identified in Greek.”

  “Oh, boy,” said Becca. “Lily, can I borrow your tablet?”

  While Becca searched the tablet for a Greek dictionary, Lily examined the images for clues. There were either hundreds or none at all. She felt a little helpless. Wade and Darrell were standing around looking bewildered, too.

  Becca had better luck, soon identifying one of the women, kneeling in prayer in a kind of chapel, as Saint Matrona. One of the men, who was holding two books with crosses on their covers, was Saint John Chrysostom.

  “This one here is Saint Anysia,” Becca said. “She’s often shown standing on a mountain of gold because she gave away her money. Next to them is Saint Joachim of Ithaca. He’s holding a tiny church. Saint Achillius of Larissa and Saint Nikon are praying. The last one is Saint Dominic, who is tending his garden.”

  “Wade, my notebook,” his father said. “I remember Uncle Henry lecturing once and mentioning something about saints.”

  “Do you think there’s a clue in there about who the saints are?” asked Lily.

  “Maybe,” Roald said, flipping the pages slowly.

  “If all the saints are Greek,” Wade said, “Maxim was probably remembering his home. He painted them at the end of his life—”

  “No,” said Roald. “Not all of them. Six are Greek, but Saint Dominic is Italian. That’s what I was remembering. Here it is, from Uncle Henry’s first lectures about cosmology. He told us that Saint Dominic was the patron saint of . . . guess what?”

  “Uncle Roald, that’s my line,” said Lily.

  “Astronomy!” he said. “Uncle Henry told us at the beginning of his survey course. Of all the seven icons, this one might be the real clue.”

  Lily stood in front of the painting and snapped a picture of it on the tablet. “There aren’t any astronomy things in the picture,” she said. “Dominic’s right hand is pointing to a tall tower, while his left is holding some kind of stalky plant with a white bulb dangling from it.”

  “That’s an onion,” Becca said.

  “An onion,” Wade mumbled, taking the notebook back from his father. “Boris said ‘onion’ on the videotape . . . ‘secret is hidden,’ he said, ‘like layers of onion.’ Does everyone remember that? Then he said ‘In the center . . . is relic.’”

  The cell went quiet. Lily suspected it was because they were all remembering Boris Volkov, or Rubashov, as they found out his real name was. Boris was the first victim of the hunt for the second relic. “Maybe Maxim is saying he planted the secret,” she said. “Or he hid it in the ground somewhere, like an onion.”

  “The domes in the monastery are called onion domes,” said Roald.

  Lily recalled that from her reading. Was that a clue, too?

  Darrell looked up from the map and tried to listen to the crisscrossing voices, even his stepfather’s, but all he could see was the tiny prison cell, and he couldn’t not think of his mother. Her cell might be like this, clean and white. Or more probably it was filthy and dark and cold and horrible. . . .

  Don’t go there.

  Dad said it isn’t healthy and it doesn’t help. Be useful. Back to the map. My job is just to plan a way out of here.

  He rubbed his face with one hand, then tried to match up the nearly sixty numbers on the map with the list of names on the facing page, to pinpoint their current position in the vast monastery. If they had to escape, how would they do it? Which route would they take, leading to where? Here’s the wall above the Gateway Church of Saint John the Baptist . . .

  There was the sound of an engine stuttering in the parking lot below the window, and Roald instantly looked out. “Two cars just pulled in. And it’s snowing harder now.”

  . . . and there’s the Good Friday Tower . . .

  “Saint Dominic was also the patron saint of people who have been falsely accused,” Becca said, still reading Lily’s tablet. “Like you, Wade.”

  “Thanks for reminding me—”

  “Darrell, you look at art all the time,” Lily said. “Your mom and everything. What do you see when you look at the painting?”

  He lifted his head from the map and stared squarely at the icon. “A saint. He’s pointing to a tower with one hand. In the other he’s holding . . . he’s holding an onion. . . . Holy cow. Could it be that simple?”

  “What’s simple?” asked Wade.

  Darrell flipped the map around. “Look at this right here. Two towers away. This one on the corner is called the Good Friday Tower, right? The next one is called the Onion Tower. Right here on the south wall of the monastery. In the painting, Dominic is holding an onion and pointing to a tower. He’s saying Onion Tower. The relic is in the Onion Tower—”

  There came the sudden sound of footsteps from the bottom of the stairway outside.

  “Dr. Kaplan! Children!” someone called. “We know you are up there!” The voice was unfamiliar.

  Roald peeked out of the cell, then quickly jerked back in. “The government man from before. He must be with the Brotherhood. He’s not alone.”

  The stairway groaned with several sets of feet. “Dr. Kaplan, come out this instant,” another voice shouted. “You are all in violation of the laws of Holy Trinity—Saint Sergius Lavra and the Russian Federation!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Becca held he
r breath as at least two, maybe three or even four people stomped up the stairs and into the passage outside Maxim’s cell, only to find the gate at the far end of the passage padlocked. The urgency of the raised voices and the rattling of the gate told her they didn’t have the key with them.

  There was a good deal more yelling before the men hurried back down the steps. One of them yelled over and over, “Poluchit’ klyuchi!” The final word sounded enough like key in both French and Italian for Becca to know that the men would soon be back.

  “I hope Brother Semyon is okay,” said Lily.

  “We’ll have to hope he can take care of himself.” Roald peeked out again. The hall was empty. “Darrell, how do we get to the Onion Tower?”

  “Without going back down the stairs? Only one way. Over the roof on the outside wall. But I don’t see how to get up there.”

  “There’s scaffolding along parts of the outside wall,” said Wade.

  Roald shook his head. “Let’s see what’s at the other end of the passage.”

  They scurried out of the cell and down the narrow hallway to where it ended in a brief L, a dead end that led nowhere except for a small window set high in the wall. Becca suspected it might offer the only way to go, besides back down the stairs and into the hands of men who were most certainly from the Red Brotherhood.

  “The window is our only way out,” she said softly.

  “Like you know,” said Darrell.

  “Do you have a better idea, smarty?” asked Lily. “As the intelligence officer around here, I’m siding with Becca. Which is like her getting an A and you getting . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Not an A,” she said. “But can we even get it open?”

  Roald reached to the sill and pulled himself up high enough to see out. “There’s scaffolding right outside. I guess we’ll have to go this way.”

  More shouting from the hall, then the clank of chains hitting the floor. There was only the bolt now that kept the men from getting to them. Together, Wade and his father pushed out on the window. It groaned. “Careful, Dad. You’re pushing too hard—”