The Doomsday Key
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He was saved from responding when Wallace lifted an arm ahead and pointed down to the ground. "Here it is!"
"Just think about it," Seichan finished. "I'm going back to the tractor."
Gray continued alone to the cave. Lyle had ducked into it. The entrance was shorter than Gray's waist, but it opened into a tiny cave beyond. Kneeling, Gray pulled out a flashlight from his pack and played it over the inside. It was a natural cavern, and except for a dented beer can and a bit of trash, it was nondescript.
If this was Merlin's final resting place, he needed to complain about the accommodations. No wonder Father Giovanni never gave it a second look.
"Nothing's here," Wallace finally concluded.
Gray agreed. "Let's head over the hill."
They walked briskly back as rain began to spatter harder. Once they reached the trailer, they set off again. Lyle drove the tractor over the summit of the hill and down the far side.
Lowlands stretched ahead, again parceled out into tracts of farmland and grazing fields. But at the foot of the hill rose their destination. It was a square tower, half in rubble, rising in the middle of a cemetery. It was all that was left of Saint Mary's Abbey. A newer chapel and chapel house stood off to one side. From this height, Gray could also make out some crumbled foundation walls of the old abbey.
As they descended, Lyle pointed to a small house in the distance. "Plas Bach!" he called out, naming the place. "You can rent that place. It's also home to our famous apple tree."
Gray reached into a pocket of his coat and realized he still had the apple tossed to him by Father Rye. As he stared at the pink apple, it reminded him of the abbey's residents. Both the apple tree and the monks were described in various circles as uncommonly healthy and of amazing longevity. Had the monks of Saint Mary's known some secret? Was it the same secret they all sought now, the key to the Doomsday Book? And if so, how did they come by it?
With a final belch of exhaust, reeking of oil, the tractor ground to a halt at the foot of the hill beside the cemetery. Celtic crosses dotted the grounds, including an especially tall one in the shadows of the abbey's broken tower.
The group climbed out of the trailer bed and dusted off stray bits of straw. The downpour had mostly stopped, which was a relief. But lightning flashed to the north. Thunder rumbled a low warning of more rain to come. They had better work quickly.
Gray stepped over to Lyle. "You said Father Giovanni spent most of his time here. Do you happen to know what he was doing? Is there anywhere he concentrated on looking?"
Lyle shrugged with his whole body. "He was all over the ruins here. Mostly measuring."
"Measuring?"
A nod answered him. "He had tape measures, and what do you call it?" He pantomimed with his arms, holding them askew and eyeballing down them. "Little telescopes for figuring out how high things are and what not?"
"Surveying equipment," Gray realized aloud. "Is there any place he spent lots of time measuring?"
"Aye. Our crosses and over by the old stone ruins."
"Ruins? You mean the abbey?"
Wallace stepped to Lyle's other side. "I think the boy means the ruins of the ancients, don't you, lad?"
"That's correct, sir."
"Can you show us?"
"Of course I can." And he was off.
They followed as a group, crossing through the cemetery. Lyle pointed to each Celtic cross as he passed it. He ended at the tallest in the cemetery. It rose from a small hillock.
"This marks the grave of Lord Newborough," Lyle said. "One of our most famous Bardsey nobles and a great benefactor to the Church."
Gray craned up at it. Father Giovanni surely knew the significance of the Celtic crosses, how they were modifications of older Druid crosses, which likewise had been borrowed from the ancients who originally occupied the British Isles and carved that symbol on their standing stones. One symbol that linked all three cultures, flowing from the ancient past to the present.
Had the key followed the same path? From ancients, to Celts, to Christians?
Wallace stared across the cemetery. "Father Giovanni measured all the crosses?"
"He did indeed."
"And you said he did the same to some stone ruins?"
"Over this way." Lyle circled the rubble of the abbey bell tower and marched into a grassy field. He kicked his feet as if looking for something. "Father Giovanni searched all the ancient hut circles. Most are on this side of the island."
Wallace marched beside Gray. "No wonder the monks set their abbey here. It was common for the early Church to build on sacred sites. Stamping their religion on top of another. Both as a way of getting rid of it, but also to help the newly converted smoothly transition into the new faith."
"Here!" Lyle called out from a few yards to the right. "I think this is the one!"
Gray crossed over with Wallace. The boy stood in the middle of a crude ring of stone blocks half-buried in the turf. Gray walked its circumference.
Wallace scratched his chin. "Are you sure this is the right hut circle? The one our friend was interested in?"
Lyle suddenly didn't look so certain.
Gray stopped at one of the stones. He knelt down and parted the grasses. He stared down at the stone and knew they were at the right place.
On the crude boulder was carved a symbol.
A spiral.
Gray stared across the field. He double-checked with his compass. In a direct path east from here, where the sun would rise on the new day, stood Lord Newborough's grave marker, a giant Celtic cross, whose roots traced back to the same artisans who had carved the ragged spiral on the boulder at Gray's feet.
"This is it," he mumbled.
"What's that?" Wallace asked, not hearing him.
Gray continued to study the distant cross. He didn't need any measuring tools, though he might not have figured it out so quickly if it hadn't been for Lyle telling him about the painstaking survey the priest had done here.