The Girl and the Guardian

By Peter Harris

Volume I of the 2000-plus page epic fantasy Apples of Aeden, twelve years in the making. Newly edited in October 2012, with many new coloured maps and graphics throughout.
This epic isn't for the casual reader! Be warned: this world will draw you in, and you will lose yourself in it, and as with Galadriel's realm, those who visit Aeden do not emerge unchanged. The world of the epic is ageless, esoteric, philosophical, and Romantic, exploring in a vast cycle what an intergalactic civilisation which truly honoured Love, Beauty, Truth, and Freedom might have looked like - and how it might have fallen, and how far...

The Narrator, a distracted Oxford history student, finds a cryptic manuscript connected with the Knights Templar which leads him, via a hollow yew tree and a skeleton clutching an artefact not of this world, to Chartres cathedral, and thence to a mysterious antipodean forest containing an ancient Portal.

Meanwhile Shelley Arkle of New Zealand has had a very busy 13th birthday. On the way North, summoned by her eccentric grandfather, she learned that she was adopted, her ‘father’ crashed the car, then she was lured into the dangerous forest of the Fairyhill Reserve, and through its Portal into the world of Aeden (sketchily remembered by humans as the Garden of Eden).

Waiting there for Shelley is a grim hermit warrior. She flees from him, and is picked up by a sinister black wagon. She is rescued by the wild Boy Raiders, but her glasses are smashed. The Boys deliver her back to the grim warrior: Korman the Outcast. He swears to be her Guardian, and together they flee the Kiraglim Trackers and Wardogs. In the cave of the learned Padrathad, Shelley eats the healing Apples of Aeden, and her eyesight becomes perfect.

She learns that Aeden was once the hub of a magical Republic of nine worlds, whose pillars were Love, Beauty, Truth and Freedom, and which once honoured the Balance of the Divine Feminine and Masculine.
Shelley realizes that the fate of Earth is linked with that of Aeden. She begins to accept the mysterious call to become the Kortana, or Jewel-caller, and find the lost Heartstone of the Tree of Life. Only thus can Aeden be saved from the fanatical life-denying Aghmaath, or thornmen. Then the lost Balance between the Masculine (Truth and Freedom) and the suppressed Feminine (Love and Beauty) will be restored and the Fifth Age will dawn.

But first they must seek the hidden refuge of Urak Tara where Shelley will learn how to become the Kortana. Along the way she meets (to name a few): the rebel Quickblade and his Boy Raiders; the wild Urxura (the origin of our unicorn myths) and their even wilder friends the elusive Evergirls; Ainenia, Lady of Aeden and exiled mistress of Avalon; the boy Rilke who gives her a blue diamond; their shared pet Worriette, a cute orphaned wurrier; the not-so-cute werewurriers; a dragon-snake; a burrow-dwelling gem-hoarding anklebiter called Bootnip (Korman's grumpy pet); the squabbling dwellers of the Bottomless Canyon; swindling agathra fossickers; a colony of poets and artists; Hillgard the rebel Guardian; and the happy Waveriders. She also falls in love twice. Guided by the troubled Korman (and sometimes guiding him) she learns many magical wisdoms, such as Walking in Faery, Guiding the Unfolding, Entering the Dreamweb, and Defence against Mindbolts and Mindwebs. Pursued by the Aghmaath, they are hampered by the fact that Korman long ago vowed not use Arcratine, his mighty firesword. One by one the remnants of the Old Order are being conquered, and they are drawn into battles and seiges as they seek the lost school of Ürak Tara.

When a fateful pact with Korman goes wrong, Shelley is left alone on an island on Lake Deadwater, deep in the thornfields. But a strange, forsaken creature from the lake comes to her aid, and together they escape, seeking Ürak Tara. She is now a true Rebel of Aeden - with a price on her head.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Harris
• Release date: Oct 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301983193

Peter Harris

I joined GRID-Arendal as Managing Director in 2014. I am a native of the USA, citizen of Australia and resident of Norway; I describe myself as a “professional foreigner”. I am a graduate of the University of Washington (Seattle USA), completed a PhD at the University of Wales (Swansea UK), married an Australian and have 3 children. I have worked in the field of marine geology and science management for over 30 years and published over 100 scientific papers. I taught marine geology at the University of Sydney and conducted research on UK estuaries, the Great Barrier Reef, the Fly River Delta (Papua New Guinea) and Antarctica. I worked for 20 years for Australia’s national geoscience agency as a scientist and manager. In 2009 I was appointed a member of the group of experts for the United Nations World Ocean Assessment. Apart from managing all of GRID-Arendal’s amazing activities, my interests include new methods for the conduct of environmental assessments (the expert elicitation method) and the use of multivariate statistics and geomorphology to provide tools to manage the global ocean environment. I also enjoy sailing and playing the bagpipes.

Book preview

Kor-Edartha

Just before the destruction of Atlantis, a silver seed of the Apples of Aeden was borne over the seas to a far southern land, where it was planted in a forest still called Silverwood though the Trees, and the true memory of them, have long since perished from Edartha.

- Ennead of Aeden

Narrator’s Preamble

This book tells of a remarkable girl named Shelley Arkle; how she came to be swept up into the latest, perhaps the final, struggle against an ancient foe. Thanks to her we are on the verge of a new Golden Age in this part of the galaxy – if we win, that is.

And if we lose? – Unthinkable horror.

What you are about to hear has to do with the true history of Earth and its part in the Alliance of Nine Worlds, now spoken of openly for the first time in thousands of years. Great things are afoot! For this is, in a sense, the story of Paradise lost and – we hope – Paradise regained.

Who am I, and how do I come to know these things? I am just a student of ancient history, turned storyteller (and fugitive) due to certain stupendous discoveries, which led to my meeting the Girl and becoming caught up in her quest. The present volume begins with a first-person account of these discoveries. Hopefully my own story will provide an historical background to Shelley’s – and show that the connections between Earth and Aeden are still very real. The enemy which pursued Shelley on Aeden also has its sinister representatives here on Earth.

And who is the Guardian? You must read the rest of the book to find that out.

Now, let my story be its own witness. Only remember, as the saying goes: ‘Truth is where we find it.’ So we must try to keep an open heart and mind. As I have been learning, things here on Earth are not quite as they seem…

If you do keep an open heart and mind, and believe what I am about to tell you, then you will be important, through your thoughts and actions, perhaps vitally important, in the Unfolding of the Events that are to come. And that is why Shelley has asked me to write this book.

A word on the presentation of this account: I cannot claim to be a rigorous historian, still less a novelist, but in the spirit of Aeden I have taken on the mantle of Narrator, and I hope that you will be at least entertained, and more importantly, inspired and stirred into action by thought and deed to affect the Unfolding on behalf of all you hold dear.

I have compiled short relevant extracts from the Enneads (the books of the chronicles, prophecies and epic poems of Aeden, divided in honour of the Nine Worlds into nine books or sections) and inserted these at hopefully appropriate places in the narrative. There are more in the appendix.

It was very hard to know what to include and what to leave out. We have, of course, an enormous new field of knowledge both ‘scientific’ and ‘magical’ to explore and come to terms with, but for present purposes I hope to give you an inkling of the vast – in fact interstellar and perhaps even intergalactic – territories, huge time-spans, and new realms of the mind and spirit, opened up by this contact. If at any point (such as in the Cave of Barachthad, where Shelley learns much about Aeden in a short time) the factual details overwhelm, you may safely skip that point; there is a lexicon and glossary at the back for quick reference later.

For the sake of clarity, I have taken some liberties with Shelley’s diary, which was entrusted to me in tragic circumstances.

Finally, with the help of a certain ‘Mindstone’ also entrusted to me, I have had experiences of many things written in the Ennead. It was as if I were present at the very events described. This has helped in the comprehension of some very deep matters, otherwise far beyond my limited capacities.

C. H.

Chapter One

What will follow is Hidden

One autumn morning not so long ago (though it seems like another age altogether – perhaps it was?) I sat, trembling with excitement, at the cluttered oak desk in my cosy little study in Oxford, England, ecstatically poring over a very old manuscript which I had (I guiltily confess) stolen. Humming along to the Gregorian chant playing on my old gramophone, nervously jiggling my foot until the empty teacups on the desk rattled, I wiped my glasses on the clean tail of my tea-stained shirt, mentally savouring the occasion. What fateful secrets might be hidden on the fragile piece of paper I held in my hands?

My name is, shall we say, Christopher Hill. I was (and theoretically still am, against increasing odds) struggling to finish a PhD in medieval history, on the mysterious doings of the nine founders of the Knights Templar. The official course has been a long, exasperating, nervously exhausting journey through the maze of academic requirements, endless study of papers in journals arguing with previous papers on points of little import, when all along (I freely confess) I wanted only to pursue my deep passion, which was to uncover the true historical core of stories that had fascinated me since boyhood, of the Knights of the Round Table, the Lady of the Lake, the Holy Grail, Merlin, Excalibur, Camelot, Avalon, and of course, the Knights Templar.

Ah, those Knights Templar! Step by step, this quest of mine had inexorably led me (against the urgent professional advice of my thesis supervisors) to investigate the alleged esoteric doings of that controversial Order, a subject beloved of ‘cranks’ of every stripe, most of very dubious historical integrity. A subject, in a word, to be avoided by the prudent academic, lest he be tarred with the same brush as the ‘flakes, cranks and loopies,’ and fail to be accepted by the all-important Journals. As my father always reminded me, the reality for us academics is, ‘Publish [in the approved scholarly Journals] or perish.’ But I was never one to be put off by ‘realities’, as my father often complained. And as it turned out, it is a very good thing that I was not.

Back to the Templars. These knights were a unique order of warrior-monks, who wore white mantles emblazoned with a red Maltese Cross and grew their beards to distinguish them from lesser fraternities. Answerable only to the Pope, and mysteriously exempt from taxes, their Order became extremely wealthy and influential, but the individual knights were bound by a vow of poverty (this much at least is well-documented and accepted by all historians).

The intriguing account commonly circulated by the Templar enthusiasts, but dismissed by academic historians (at least, those who publish in Journals, especially since the whole subject has become ‘excessively popular’ thanks to certain fiction books based on ‘dodgy’ research), claims that these first Templars had not been in Jerusalem to protect the Christian pilgrims (their ostensible aim), but were on a secret mission to find certain lost treasures of the Temple. They were successful beyond their wildest dreams (so the story goes), stumbling upon the hidden entrance to the tunnels beneath the old Temple site. These caves were once the underground stables for the warhorses of King Solomon, but they had long been sealed off. When the Romans laid siege to the city and the priests knew it was doomed, they hid all the ancient treasures of Israel, including the golden Ark of the Covenant containing the mysterious Tables of Testimony (and other treasures amassed from foreign lands, especially Egypt), in the secret caves beneath the Temple.

The successful knights, the story continues, were then summoned back to France by their patron, the Cistercian Abbot, St Bernard de Clairvaux. They obeyed, returning with the most valuable of the treasures, and a secret council was held.

At this point all the sources (those in circulation, if they are not simply copies of each other) end, leaving many tantalising questions unanswered.

But I, like many before me, could not let it rest there. In a compulsive quest for new sources, arcane or mundane, that might throw new light on the origins of this mysterious Order, I travelled to an area hitherto unaccountably neglected by Templar historians: the Languedoc-Roussillon region in the south of France. I had read (in a book most definitely not on the Required Reading list in the department: The Templar Revelation, by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince), that over thirty percent of all Templar sites in Europe were to be found in this one small region, yet many key sites had never been archeologically investigated. But, as Picknett and Prince found, there are in the Languedoc certain unfunded (therefore labelled ‘amateur’) research groups of apparent integrity which have made some startling discoveries (unpublished, of course, in the Journals, though very well documented). It was to one of these that I went, spending the last of my departmental funding to do so, and risking disciplinary action when I returned.

Through the help of this group, I made my first big discovery, in a dusty local archive in one of the small, remote mountain villages of the region (I will not name it yet, to preserve the integrity of the research there. The custodian was most concerned to avoid a rush of ‘barbarian’ treasure-hunters). The document I found was an old letter, tucked into the back of a devotional diary kept by one of the Knights of the outer circles. It was written on a small sheet of rough-edged rag paper, in a small, neat hand, and only took up the first third of it. The writer, I began to realize with rising excitement, had been privy to secret documents reserved only for the immensely secretive inner circle, those of the ‘Third Degree.’ She (yes, a woman: that is one of the surprising facts uncovered by the ‘amateurs’: there were many women in the Order, at least in the earlier years) – she had felt the need to write to her mother, explaining her imminent departure. Roughly translated from the old French the letter read:

Dearest mother,

May the Lady forgive me, I who am the least of your daughters but the greatest in grief to you! I must write this, lest he whom I will not name, presently ravaging the Languedoc in the name of Christ, takes us also, and the secret is lost. Also, so that if we disappear you will know that we have embarked upon a long voyage, with little hope of returning, but a great hope of finding a new and better World in which we may begin anew, free from oppression.

My Beloved has told me things about the Order I had not dreamt possible, and confessed to me his desire to leave these troubles and seek that better World for our children.

Against his wishes, I have decided to write these words to you in case we do not live to see our hope fulfilled. My Beloved wishes us to follow Gondemare. Who knows if we can persuade the others to spare a ship? What will follow is hidden. For none know the future. Alas for us that we should live in such times!

Farewell from across the water,

Your loving daughter.

The rest of the page was blank – not even a signature. Wiping away tears which threatened to fall on the paper, I turned the letter over; the back was also blank. I wondered sadly, nervously, why the letter had not been sent; perhaps the presence of what looked like bloodstains on it and the cover of the book was all the explanation I needed – or would get.

‘So,’ I thought, ‘another cryptic manuscript, yet another tragedy from the past, leaving yet more unanswered questions!’ Of course, my father, a crusty old ‘Don’ in the Psychology Department at Oxford, would have said that is how they are best left, as they have no answer, being ‘merely the projection of our human need for mystery upon a perfectly mundane world.’ But I knew he was wrong, in my bones I knew it. I felt that all he thought he knew of the world was suspect, because it was filtered through his scepticism, which is merely a bias for the known and against the unknown. A bias based on fear…

I myself had known fear of the unknown in earlier years, having had a complete nervous breakdown, and suffered numerous delusions (so I am told) before re-emerging with catastrophic memory loss, sane but afraid of a relapse into a condition I could not even remember for myself. I am to this day quite unable to recall my life before the age of fifteen, but must rely on photos and family lore (not readily forthcoming: my father – and mother – wish that I would not try to ‘dig up the past’, but instead ‘look forward to the future.’ But I feel strongly that the key to the future is often to be found only by walking the Labyrinth of the past, and solving its puzzles.

However, I must confess that as I followed my own advice and delved deeper, I began to be troubled by very odd dreams, only remembered in vivid fragments, which left me nervous, headachy and (one might say) somewhat paranoid the next morning, reaching shakily for the aspirin washed down with strong tea. Tea helped, usually; at least it was milder in its effects than the strong instant coffee I had once been addicted to. Cycling also helped. The aerobic exercise and the fresh air cleared my head and lifted my spirits.

I had begun to notice, or imagine I noticed, certain resonances between the dreams and the things I was researching. The dreams did not, as one would expect, merely reflect the things I had learned during the day; they went beyond them, giving me glimpses into strange realms both wonderful and alarming, which always somehow felt connected to the matters I was researching. I said nothing of the dreams to my father – I knew what he would say, and did not want him recommending drugs to me, or worse still, a voluntary internment in a psychiatric ward. On the rare occasions when my parents visited, I tried to keep my facial grimaces (a side-effect of the growing nervousness I was experiencing) to a minimum. Also the foot-jiggling when sitting on the couch having tea, trying unsuccessfully to make small talk and avoid mentioning the Templars…

To return to that dusty archive office: there I was, shaking, wrung with emotions I did not fully understand, in my hand a letter which referred to a planned expedition of which the accepted histories of Templar doings say nothing. Where were they planning to go? What did she mean by ‘follow Gondemare’? What secret prompted this Templar couple to risk all and sail into the unknown, leaving the only World they knew? I leaned back in the creaky old chair at the small reading desk, and pondered. Why did the woman speak of the secret being lost if she did not write that letter? What secret? There was nothing in the letter that would…. I re-read it, slowly this time, pondering each phrase.

Suddenly one phrase stood out as if illuminated. My heart skipped a beat. Of course!

What will follow is hidden.

Looking at the blank page, glowing in the light that slanted from the small window of the office, I was overcome with curiosity, not to say greed for knowledge. I did something for which I later castigated myself endlessly, though at the time it seemed the only thing to do: I carefully slipped the precious letter under my woollen undergarment (it was freezing in the Languedoc at that time, though normally mild compared to England), and walked out of the archive office, trying not to bend and damage the brittle paper.

I am not a thief, in any way, shape or form, and I hate theft as a violation of a person’s – or a nation’s – very being. I think all national treasures should be returned to the countries of origin, whatever the risks to them there. They should be where they were created to be. Elgin’s marbles for example – what a scandal! They belong to Greece, not England. Yet here I was, removing such a treasure from its native land. I was no better than Elgin. So I trembled with guilt and disturbance to my very psyche, and grimaced uncontrollably for a while when I got out of that place. I hesitated and almost turned back and owned up. But other forces were at work in me, and I walked on, straight to the nearest café, where I had a very strong cup of tea. I then took the first available bus to the nearest airport.

On the flight back to England, I could think of nothing but the letter, and what I might find when I examined that blank space. I was sure that it would contain a hidden message, written in invisible ink. Perhaps it would also be coded; the Templars used many devices such as this to preserve their secrets. ‘What will follow is hidden’ – I kept hearing those words over and over as I sped homewards.

Chapter Two

The Mystery of the Lost Templar Knight

I now return to that moment when I sat again at my own desk, heart beating, poring over the yellowing paper.

At first I used a magnifying glass to look for any faint markings which I might have missed in the dingy archive in France. But there was nothing apart from the dark bloodstains. Next, I became more drastic. I held a blow-dryer to the blank space, moving it rapidly across the page to avoid scorching, hardly daring to breathe. Nothing appeared, but the paper became scorched and brittle as a dead leaf. I was about to dampen the sheet to try and reverse this effect, but thought better of it, and rushed off to the library. I got out the most technical books on alchemy I could find, and rushed back home. I devoured the books, looking for a technique that might have been used at that time for the invisible writing I was sure was on the letter. I learned that steganography (from the Greek ‘covered or hidden writing’) is the art of hiding the presence of a message, which may or may not itself be encrypted. The challenge is always, how does one hide it in such a way as to be easily enough revealed by the right method, but concealed from all other methods? I learned that invisible inks, being wet, often leave a tiny disturbance in the fibres of the paper, or tiny crystals, or make it shinier, so that viewed obliquely in strong light or under a magnifying glass the writing can possibly be discerned – unless the paper is dampened and dried again before writing. And heat will reveal any inks made from organic substances, by carbonising. So, I knew it was not an organic ink, having nearly incinerated the paper! I read on. ‘Sometimes, if there was nothing else available, the sender of the message would use water only…usually there would be some word in the ‘cover text’ to alert the recipient as to the method used. For example, cabbage would indicate the use of vinegar, which being acidic turns red cabbage-water blue…’ I glanced back at the letter. Nothing about cabbages…but the last sentence leapt out at me:

Farewell from across the water

‘That’s it!’ I cried. I went back to the book, and read, ‘The recipient would then use iodine fumes to reveal the tiny disturbance in the fibres. The disadvantage of this method was that if the paper became wet before being received, the message would be lost.’ I felt sick – I had so nearly dampened the letter after scorching it! I looked carefully for any sign of disturbed fibres – nothing. I would have to try iodine. ‘But did they even have iodine in those days?’ I wondered as I dashed off to the chemist’s. Then I remembered, the Templars were up on Alchemy, and may well have known of it.

Back at my ad hoc laboratory, I heated some crystals of iodine in the oven, put the letter in, and reeled back as the purple, choking fumes billowed out. I opened all the windows (a neighbour putting out her washing stared up disapprovingly; I waved. ‘Old battle-axe!’ I muttered, and tried unsuccessfully not to grimace). Turning off the oven, I pulled the letter out with serving tongs and put it on the kitchen table.

‘Eureka!’ I cried. There was new writing, in brown iodine, where all had been blank. It was not in code, but very faint, as the background was scorched, thanks to my earlier efforts. I read it greedily, struggling a little with the archaic French.

Dear reader: If you be my mother or a Friend, read on, and the blessing of our Lady be upon you. If Foe, read no further, or be accursed by Her.

‘It’s all right, I am a friend – I hope!’ I muttered, not liking the idea of being cursed by a dead woman…

Dear Mother, I write this as a witness in case our mission fails:

My Beloved spoke of a silver medallion found in that hoard which remains secret.

‘That will be the treasure they found under the Temple!’ I thought, and feverishly read on.

It was locked in a small wooden casket along with a map marking the location of a magical place within a grove of giant trees. An inscription in Hebrew was written on the map:

Where is the door to the Garden of Aeden?

What is the way to the Tree?

Sail south to a land where the stars are strange

Then you must use the Key.

One of the founding brothers, Gondemare, late in life, secretly set sail on a ship named the Dove, in search of that unknown southern land, taking with him the map and the medallion. Gondemare’s ship never returned. We mean to follow after him, for my beloved has now a copy of that map. I will draw it for you…

But there the writing stopped. There was a short scrawl which may have been the beginning of the map, but it trailed off. I imagined the terror which had interrupted that urgent message, and shook my head, tears forming in my eyes. I screwed up my eyes, and grimaced until my head began to hurt. But I could not help myself; I kept thinking. What, I wondered, was this ‘key?’ Was it perhaps the medallion? And how did the ancient writer of the poem know of a southern land so far south that the ‘stars are strange’? I began to hope and dream that the medallion could be from an earlier, as-yet unknown civilisation, perhaps even (via Sheba or Egypt) the mythical Atlantis. I conceived an urgent desire to go to that southern land, wherever it was – in spite of the fact that I fear travel to strange places (France, oddly, was an exception to this phobia). I looked up the atlas, to check what lands are at the bottom of the globe. There were not many choices. It had to be Antarctica, or Australia, or New Zealand. Even then, I had a strange sense of déjà vu, a premonition that the mystery of the past would be unlocked there. Little did I know what a strange future would also unfold in that place…

Meanwhile I was, in a sense, no further ahead. As I sat in a daze at the kitchen table, waiting for the kettle (metal, not plastic – what is this modern faith in the safety of chemically concocted materials?) to boil for a much-needed cup of tea, sunlight streamed in the window and illuminated the letter. Just as the book said, the iodine began to evaporate, and the blank area slowly returned to its previous state. I felt a sense of desolation, as if a window on the past had been shut in my face. Then emotion overcame me, and I wept for the tragedy of those times, and the couple who never lived to set sail and follow Gondemare, and the grieving mother who never received the letter.

When I finally got over my sadness and disappointment, with the help of tea and toast, I noticed that the grimacing had gone, and I felt more peaceful than I had for a long while. I now turned once more to the known (or alleged) early history of the Templars.

After their stupendous find beneath the Temple, the Knights Templar brought back the rest of the treasure, including (so the popular non-orthodox account goes) the lost Ark of the Covenant and the Tables of Testimony, and with the knowledge of Sacred geometry which they learned therein, built the great Notre Dame cathedrals: Reims, Amiens, Paris, Evereux, Bayeux – and Chartres. These contained many secrets, it is said, of geometry and the laws of light and sound. And in Chartres they built a circular pavement Labyrinth on the floor beneath the great rose window. The pattern of this Labyrinth is said to have healing virtues when walked in meditation, tracing the winding path of the soul to the mystic Centre, or Womb, then back out into the World, transformed – reborn, as it were.

The cathedral of Notre Dame de Chartres was built over the site of the Grotte des Druides, dedicated to the Mother Goddess, a place of pilgrimage for thousands of years. There, it is claimed, the telluric earth currents or ley lines are most powerful, opening the site to other dimensions.

It was to Chartres, I felt, that the trail of the Knights Templar was now leading me. Another trip to France followed – much to my father’s concern, when he heard of it. He knew that something was happening to me; the pace and intensity of my quest was increasing, and he expressed grave doubts at the direction I was taking. ‘Given your past, it isn’t wise,’ he said, ‘and your mother agrees.’

But at Chartres I was rewarded with an exciting new lead. I found, and took rubbings from, some little-known stone carvings and inscriptions in the Crypt, and elsewhere in the cathedral. I was about to pack up when, underneath the French and Latin names of more familiar ancient pilgrimage sites in France, I noticed some words in English, scratched faintly, as if hastily added to the list.

Next to these words was a roughly scratched circle with a small five-pointed star in the centre. I almost dismissed the thing as graffiti, the raving of some neo-pagan nutter – the pentacle made me nervous, even as a nominal Anglican, because of the association with paganism and even Satanism. (I did not then know what this once-sacred symbol had meant before it was ‘demonised’ by the Church.) But something made me bend closer to try to read the inscription. A chill ran up my spine when I read:

In Iffley by Isis lies the star key

I could not dismiss this message, whatever I felt about pentacles. I knew of an Iffley, in Oxfordshire not too far from my home, near the river Isis. There was an old church there, I recalled. And the ‘star key’ – could this be the Key mentioned in my Templar letter? What did the pentacle mean, if anything, and could an English church, Iffley, have some link with Chartres? Also, who had left this message – if it was any more than graffiti written by some eccentric – or satanic – English tourist?

Once more back in Oxford, I collapsed into the well-padded oak swivel-chair I loved, and pulled it up to my old oak desk, the comforting centre of my daily life. I reached out and switched on the gramophone. The scratchy old LP which had been playing when I first perused the stolen letter began to revolve, filling the little room with uplifting music (I subscribe to a theory that the analogue sound from a record has better effects on the mind than ‘digital’ sound, and notice that Gregorian chants, in particular, have a very soothing effect on frayed modern nerves). There was one more thing I needed. I jumped up, got a cup of tea and returned to my desk. There had been many questions raised by my research in Chartres, and I had almost forgotten the graffiti mentioning Iffley – I had made up my mind it was nothing but a silly, modern scrawl. Now, on impulse, I pushed aside the manuscripts of the Templars I had been reading, and going to my crowded bookcase which threatened to spill its piled-up contents onto the floor – where further books, oversized or awaiting sorting, lay in piles. I carefully pulled out an old volume on the churches and cathedrals of Europe. Perhaps, a credulous part of me whispered, against my better judgement, there was something recorded there that would indeed confirm a link between Chartres and Iffley?

The short article on Iffley Church contained nothing directly of help, but I read with interest that the sacred yew tree there greatly predates the church itself. As I went to put the book away and return to my ‘serious’ work, I thought, ‘Perhaps the link between Chartres and Iffley is much older than the churches, and goes back to the pagan sites?’ Grimacing involuntarily with nervous tension and guilt at the ‘side-tracking,’ I dived back into the quest.

At first there was nothing of relevance, though it absorbed and diverted me for an hour or more, while my suppressed guilt threatened to turn into another headache. I got another cup of tea, and began to feel better. ‘After all,’ I reasoned with my academic conscience, ‘it’s my life and my research. If I find nothing, be it upon my head. But if I do find something, it will be fantastic.’

More false leads and fascinating red herrings followed. Then, in an appendix on the history of the pagan sites the churches were built upon, I read about the sacred yews, trees of Life (and also of Death if one were silly enough to eat their leaves), which were often found at these sites. As an aside, the writer included as an illustration of the ‘uncanny’ reputation of the yew, a rather cryptic account of a knight, claiming to be a Templar but not wearing the Templar uniform, who simply appeared one day ‘under the haunted yew tree’ in a small village churchyard! This knight was ‘put to the question’ (a euphemism, I am afraid, for torture) by the local authorities as a suspected worker of black magic. He refused to speak except to say that he had seen ‘Our Lady and the holy Tree of Life in Eden,’ and was released (possibly with the intervention of the Templar Order), being deemed a madman, but not a heretic.

The tale ended there, and did not name the church. But I quickly checked the various possible sites in Oxfordshire (those that had ancient yew trees), and with a sense of impending discovery, I decided the best candidate was the yew at none other than Iffley Church. Located not twenty miles from where I lived, it was the very church mentioned in the scrawled inscription at Chartres, a cathedral which is full of Templar influences!

I resolved to cycle to Iffley Church the next day, a Saturday, straight after marking some undergraduate essays on the influence of the Cistercians on the Gothic movement. My PhD supervisor had asked me to see him on Monday, and given my recent unbudgeted trips to France ‘chasing Templar myths,’ I decided I had better at least get up to date with my marking.

The essays took a long time to get around to, and longer to mark, but finally I was finished. I decided to set off that day, even though it would mean staying overnight at an inn. I packed a few things for taking rubbings, a notebook and a photocopy of the Templar letter, plus the rubbings from Chartres, and also a few fossicking tools, and a crowbar, just in case. The sun was low and a chill was in the air as I turned my old ten-speed onto the road that led to Iffley – and the glorious prospect of new discoveries. Also, I must admit, the thought of vindicating my unorthodox opinions, and thereby proving my father wrong about the Templars and the wisdom of my quest, added spice to my elation.

Chapter Three

The Sacred Yew of Iffley

I cycled in as night was falling. A storm was brewing as I rang the doorbell at the local inn (The Tree, whose brochure promised ‘Room rates include a good old-fashioned English breakfast’). My teeth chattered as I stood on the well-worn stone doorstep in gusts of icy wind. When I was finally ushered in, my glasses fogged up badly, but I hardly noticed as I warmed my hands before the fire, enjoying the heavenly smell of dinner cooking, and sipping a pint of excellent local ale.

The next morning I was woken by the infernal buzz of a two-stroke engine - directly under my window, it seemed. The storm, which had rattled the old leadlights in my upstairs room for most of the night, had abated, leaving a fresh stillness in the cold air – and leaves, which apparently had to be blown with noisy mechanical urgency into piles for disposal.

I sat down to breakfast tired and irritable with whoever had used the leafblower and rubbed my nose in the follies of the modern age, but expectant of great discoveries regarding the past. I looked at the old manuscript and the Chartres rubbings once more over a cup of tea. I decided what I would say to the Vicar at Iffley, should he interrupt me at my investigations of his tree. Then, after checking the contents of my knapsack once more, I stepped outside.

The leaf-blowing, Sabbath-breaking contractor had just finished his task, and I glared pointedly at his departing van before unlocking my bicycle and setting out for Iffley. Signs of storm damage were everywhere. The river Isis (odd name for an English river!) was up, swirling dead branches and other flotsam past the willows along the banks. It was still relatively early in the morning, and only a few cars passed me on the road to the church as I cycled briskly along, humming the Gregorian chant which had fixed itself in my mind, anticipating, fantasising about what I might find at Iffley. Especially I pondered the poem about the doorway into the lost Garden of Eden, and the ‘Key’ that might be a medallion. ‘Could such a momentous thing really be hidden there?’ I wondered.

As I dismounted in front of the old church, sparrows chirping in the greenery, nothing could have prepared me for the suddenness with which I was propelled into another reality, the ancient forest where coincidences pile up like autumn leaves, assumptions crumble and paths open up to things ‘undreamed of in our poor philosophy.’

I leaned my bicycle against the churchyard fence and entered the grounds. Not having a permit for any of the poking around which I hoped to do, I attempted to impersonate a casual but respectful sightseer as I strolled down the path to the back of the church where the ancient yew stood. Cold drops from the wet bushes showered me as I passed. I was so engrossed in this impersonation, and resisting the urge to grimace, that I didn’t notice the Vicar standing just around the corner of the church, and I had a rather embarrassing introduction to him, picking myself up from the slippery path where I had fallen at his feet. Looking up into a round, good-natured, elderly face, I apologised for the intrusion, and the expression of slight annoyance turned into a smile.

‘Don’t mention it, young man. I was just looking at the storm damage and didn’t hear you coming.’

‘The sacred yew,’ I muttered, looking over his shoulder at the tousled treetop.

‘You have an appreciation for trees? Well, just look what the storm did last night to the oldest yew in the district!’ He shook his head sadly.

Together we approached the tree, surrounded by the oldest gravestones of the churchyard, which leaned this way and that, as old gravestones always seem to do. Somewhere high above, a crow cawed. I jumped. There was a distinctly uncanny feeling to the place, and it seemed to emanate from the tree. Almost enveloped by the dark evergreen branches was a worn old headstone topped with the encircled Celtic cross, a carved rose in its centre. ‘The grave of our very own resident Anchorite, Annora,’ said the Vicar, pointing to the moss-covered inscription. In the green shadows beyond was the huge knobbly trunk of the old yew.

‘Well, do you notice anything odd about it?’ said the Vicar as we stood facing the trunk, dwarfed by its venerable mass.

‘Ah, the bark is flaky, the trunk is very, er… gnarled, almost swollen looking,’ I volunteered shakily, grimacing in spite of myself. For this was the very tree I had intended to surreptitiously investigate! Now I was unaccountably afraid.

‘Yes, well it is over fifteen hundred years old, you know – perhaps more. You can never really tell with these trees – the trunks of the oldest ones are always re-growth, leaving behind a hollow interior where the original trunk has finally rotted out. So in a sense, they never die. Hence their sacred reputation as Trees of Life.’

‘And Death,’ I replied, uneasily.

‘Yes. They were much in demand for wood from which the deadly English longbow was crafted; and every part of the tree is poisonous, except for the flesh of the fruit. But look, there’s a crack right there, near the ground. I’d never noticed any sign of cracking in the trunk before. It is only the really old yews that are hollow. It is a sacred tree, of course, consecrated to the Goddess long before this church was built. Yes, don’t look so shocked, I know I’m a Vicar, and we’re not supposed to talk or even know about pagan things, but I believe, ah – what did you say your name was?’

‘Christopher,’ I offered.

‘Ah, a good Christian name! – I believe, Christopher, there is an old wisdom that we need to find out about again, a wisdom in the bones of the Earth and the sacred trees that were planted in reverence for Her…’

‘For whom?’

‘Mother Earth, of course.’

‘Yes, how very interesting. Could you perhaps tell me more about this tree?’ I was keen to know how much he knew – or guessed.

‘Well, just between you and me, I believe ancient trees like this are keys to the renewal of reverence for the divine in nature, Mother Earth as we call her. They hold an energy… have you felt it?’

‘Well, um…’ I grimaced and shuffled nervously under his keen glance. I was especially taken aback by his mention of keys. Perhaps this was all the graffiti had meant? Perhaps the Vicar himself had written it? As for his question about the energy of trees, I had felt something sometimes, standing in the shade of a great oak or elm.

‘What’s your background?’ the Vicar asked while I still nervously pondered. ‘Are you a religious man?’

I blushed and muttered something about being a ‘nominal Anglican’ and a student of the traditions and history of the Knights Templar. I noticed him start and look at me sharply. He took a deep breath, and replied, ‘Well, well, that is very interesting, very – how should I say – coincidental. The Knights Templar, eh? Now, about that crack… oh, by the way, what did you say brought you here? You were not, I think, coming to the ten o’clock service?’

‘Ah – I was considering it… That is to say, if I had time…’

He looked at me sceptically. ‘I can’t lie to a priest,’ I thought self-reprovingly.

‘Well, actually, I came especially about this tree, Father. I wanted to examine it… not to hurt it of course, in any way…’

At that moment he noticed the crowbar protruding from my rucksack.

‘Of course not, my son, of course not… but look here, you and I are on the same side, I think. Now, would you lend me that crowbar you happen to have in your rucksack?’ He put out a large gnarled hand, smiling, with just a hint of a twinkle in his eye.

‘Ah, yes, yes of course,’ I stammered, grimacing in spite of myself, squirming inwardly with embarrassment. ‘Here you are.’

What happened next is etched in my memory. The Vicar approached the uncanny tree, stepping over a fallen branch that was singed, perhaps from a lightning strike in the storm. As the crowbar touched the crack, it widened of its own accord. The crowbar sprang from his hand and thudded into the wet grass. Everything was deathly still. I noticed the quiet – even the birds had stopped chirping. The Vicar reeled back and stood there, wide-eyed and gasping. I let out a whoop that was half terror, half elation. Fascinated, I approached the gap. It was just wide enough to admit my head and shoulders sideways. I peered in cautiously, deathly afraid the gap might close over my head. In the icy darkness I smelt fresh sap (from the cracking of the trunk) over a deep musty smell of old earth and rotted leaves.

Unable to stand the suspense a second longer I withdrew my head and stepped back. Yet this was the moment I had been dreaming of, never fully believing it could happen. An obscure story in a dusty book, hardly believed, was turning into reality. This surely was the very tree out of which the Templar Knight had appeared!

‘You have an idea what is down there, don’t you?’ said the Vicar, recovering his composure and looking penetratingly at me.

My glasses started to fog up. Trembling, I babbled, ‘Ah well, yes, Father, perhaps I do… Sorry, I should have come clean. I’m not very good with people, living people you know… I live so much in the past, for the past really, if you understand… trying to bring it back to life… everything was so much more… real, I suppose. No TV, no motorways and pylons and noisy leaf-blowers and lawn-mowers, you know, that sort of thing – I mean, really, leaf-blowers! The world has gone mad Father, really it has! I wish I could have had the chance to be, say, one of the Knights Templar, Guardians of the Grail. Of course it was no picnic then either, defending the faith, life and death struggles, thinking you would fall off the edge of the World if you sailed too far… but it was real, Father, and the beauty of it all – yes I suppose that’s it, the World was just more beautiful and natural then – even the weapons were simple and beautiful… Bring me my sword; bring me my chariot of fire…’

As I quoted Blake’s poem I swung my arm around wildly, imagining, exalting. I paused, looking at the Vicar, embarrassed again, and went to lean my arm against the tree. But the gap had grown. My hand met with empty air, and losing balance I toppled headfirst into the blackness! I fell, grabbing frantically for something to break my fall. Slippery roots slapped over my hands. I grabbed at them and was spun right way up again, but the roots slipped painfully through my fingers and I fell further into the blackness. I landed with a thud, mercifully on soft ground, but my legs gave way with the force of the fall and my face hit the piled-up mould of rotten wood from the insides of the tree high above me.

‘Are you all right, son?’ the Vicar’s voice echoed down.

I picked myself up, rubbed my muddy hands on my trousers, wiped the mould from my face and moved my limbs. I was shaking, but amazed and relieved to find I was still in one piece. I took out a handkerchief and tried to clean my glasses.

‘I… I think so, Father,’ I replied, spitting out bits of musty earth, eager to talk to keep the connection with him, and not to dwell on the fact that I was now inside the haunted tree. ‘Just a few scratches I think… My eyes are adjusting to the darkness… I say! I think it’s an old well!’

‘Well, well, now, that is interesting!’ he boomed back, chuckling at his own pun. I cackled back nervously. The Vicar then proceeded to ‘fill me in’, he at the top of the well, I at the bottom, both of us passionate about the meaning of this discovery and (almost) oblivious to the oddness of the setting for telling a tale. ‘Perhaps I should mention the fact that I was half expecting someone like you to turn up today, son. You see, a woman recently came in great secrecy to show me something. She claimed to be a descendant of Annora the Anchoress…’

‘The one buried under this tree?’ I interrupted, shuddering.

‘The same. She lived in a cell built into the wall of the church here, centuries ago. This woman (who would not tell me her name) showed me Annora’s secret diary. It tells of a knight – a Templar, no less – who appeared out of the tree and entrusted a sacred treasure to her. Soon afterward he was arrested and tortured, but eventually he was released. – shall I go on, or are you getting cold down there?’

‘Go on, go on!’ I called back. I had to know.

‘Well, Annora claimed to be a guardian of the mystery of the holy tree. She wrote that one evening at full moon the knight appeared again, old and decrepit, but wearing full armour, and asked for the treasure back. He then requested the last rites. She performed these for him, out here under the tree in the moonlight. He told her many wonders which he had seen in his long life, swearing her and her descendants to secrecy until the time of the prophecy. Then he made a strange sign with his hand, and died in her arms. The tree opened up and received the body of the knight, still holding the treasure, a talisman of some kind, which he called the ‘Ouvron.’ A French word I gather. He told her it must be buried with him until the proper time, for it was perilous.

‘I didn’t know what to make of it, but listen to this! Annora goes on to say that just before he died, the knight prophesied and said:

When storm will see the yew branch downed

And the holy tree doth open up the ground,

The doorway to Eden once more shall be found.’

‘Really, Father?’ I called back. ‘How remarkable. So that means somewhere in here is…’

A prickly feeling came over the back of my neck. I wished I had the little pocket torch I had brought along in case I needed to peer into any cracks in the tree. I had not imagined being inside it…

Above was a halo of daylight, framed by the gaping crack in the tree. In front of me was the unmistakable curved drystone wall of the well, damp but surprisingly clean. Not even a spiderweb. It had been pitch dark in here for perhaps eight hundred years, ever since the tree grew right over the well and blocked out the sunlight. Except, that is, when a crack opened up and took the dead knight down…

No way out of here but back up, I thought, a little uncomfortably. What if the crack closes again? But I had to go on. ‘Father, I’ll have a quick look around now if you don’t mind.

‘No hurry, son! I’ll pull you up when you’re ready.’

Now fully accustomed to the dark, I gazed into the shadows to my right. I froze: I was looking straight into the grinning face of a large human skeleton. It was faintly, eerily, illuminated from above by a cold white light that seemed now to come from quite another England, the old England where magic was real and nothing was certain, neither life nor death, nor good or evil. I shuddered and shrank away. But my intense curiosity got hold of me again, and I reached out my shaking hand and touched his.

I now felt differently about the skeleton; I felt somehow that I knew the man he used to be. He was no longer a stranger to me, even though so long dead. He was wearing the remains of a chainmail suit. I had little doubt that he was the Templar who had appeared out of the tree and returned there to die; perhaps none other than that lost Templar Knight, Gondemare the Seafarer! If so, was he holding it, the Ouvron? If the account of Annora the Anchoress was true, he should be…

‘Eureka! I think!’ I yelled in ecstasy – very unscholarly – and began shouting and whooping.

‘What the devil’s happening down there?’ yelled the Vicar from above, and I came to my senses again.

‘My apologies, Father. There appears to be a rather important… er… artefact here. That is to say, your Anchoress was telling the truth… it is definitely some sort of well, dry of course, half filled with debris… we’ll have to sift through it… a dig, father, oh yes there will have to be a dig in here… we must be restrained… don’t want to disturb any evidence… but THIS IS FANTASTIC!’ I reverted to shouting. Then a shred of practicality returned: ‘You don’t have a rope anywhere handy, do you Father?’

‘What have you found, dammit, what have you found?’ yelled the Vicar impatiently.

‘Only a knight Templar, father! And I think he’s holding something…’

‘What, what is he holding?’ I felt panicky. I needed to know I could get out quickly if my nerves failed. I heard my father’s voice – ‘…we have grave doubts, given your history…’

‘Can you throw me down a rope, father!’

‘He’s holding a rope?’

‘Rope, send me down a ROPE!’

‘Oh, rope! Of course… I’ll go and look for some.’

‘Hurry, father!’

‘Keep calm! Patience is a virtue, my son. Back in five minutes.’ I heard him muttering, ‘Maybe in the vestry… no, I’ll have to go back to the Vicarage …’ I groaned.

There was now deep silence except for my breathing, mist streaming from my mouth over the quiet little tomb where I now knelt, letting my gaze fall again upon the stupendous find – the Knight, my lost Knight Templar!

But moods can shift quickly in such places, in such company. And now that I was alone, a horror of that place rushed over me, as I looked into the empty sockets of his eyes. He leaned against the stone lining of the ancient well, staring sightless or with some other sight more penetrating, clutching at my soul with icy fear… I shrank back, wondered how long five minutes would feel like down here, trapped with a dead man. Could I remain composed for that long? Assuming he finds a rope at all… Doubts and fears began to fill my mind: ‘Will I be a gibbering madman by the time he returns? Maybe he’s in league with the Athmadites! Maybe he’ll bring them, and they’ll block the entrance, or come down and torture me for information!’ I had read about these men in a Templar manuscript the night before. It said:

There are those who hide in the shadows, and seek for evil ends the Secret Door to the lost Eden. They must not find it! They are known as the Athmadites, and walk among us in secret.

Then I remembered my own quest, and the fierce curiosity that had brought me to Iffley overcame my horror, and I reached out for the skeleton’s hand again. This time it was unmistakable: it was clutching something. I made the sign of the cross (just in case), muttered a little prayer of apology to the dead, and to all the gods, goddesses, guardians, and ghosts that may be watching me now, and then pulled back the bony chain-mailed fingers – crack, crack, one by one they yielded, horribly breaking in my own grip, my cold but living fingers overcoming the knight’s icy dead ones. ‘Thief, thief!’ screamed a voice in my head, but now heedless of caution I eagerly caught the precious thing which dropped from his dead fingers: a heavy, gleaming silver disk, about two and a half inches across, carved with the same disturbing pentacle image as the Chartres inscription, but very much more disturbing in the dark alone with a skeleton, and much more clearly portrayed – and with other details: The central pentacle sat over a carved starfish shape – an island, I guessed from the wavy lines like water around it – and between its five points grew five trees – or the branches of one central tree. The island and the water surrounding it were as it were encapsulated in a golden amber or glass, so that they seemed remote, untouchable, bathed in a light that spoke to me of the Golden Age and of lost paradises.

Each of the points of the central pentacle touched the point of a smaller pentacle set inside a disk. These five small disks were linked by concentric circular lines around the circumference of the main disk. The lines were deeply scored, giving almost (I thought) the appearance of cooling fins. It was a decidedly magical-looking artefact. Turning it over in my shaking hand, I saw that the smooth back was contoured to look like an apple, with the stalk at the top pierced to make a hanging hole.

Turning the disk over again, I saw that the pentagonal pyramid in the centre of the pentacle had five letters carved into it, in an alphabet I did not recognise. I speculated that it represented the point of a crystal.

Around the outside of the disk I noticed five images engraved between the five smaller disks: a sun and crescent moon; a double-ended crystal; a comet; a many-armed spiral (perhaps a galaxy, I thought); and a sword.

The Ouvron! Something so secret it was not even a rumour; unguessed, unknown to any but me… I had a sudden, chilling thought: perhaps descendants of the shadowy Athmadites still roamed the Earth. I now had very good reason to believe the Templar warning. It was proven by the heavy silver and amber disk I held in my trembling hand…

Looking up, all I could see was a dim glow like moonlight filtering through the groping roots hanging down like witches’ hair over the dead knight and me. I looked back down, trying not to look at the sockets of his eyes. Cold thrills of fear began to run down my back as I waited. My mind raced through labyrinths of childhood fears, of ghosts, of haunted trees that groped and held one fast, night-flying owls in overgrown churchyards full of old graves – just like the one above me now – spiders, crawling, creeping over me, coming at me from behind… The back of my neck bristled. I had to look. I wheeled around, and breathed a sigh of relief – nothing there but the dripping, glistening stones of the wall.

Just then I heard a thudding as of heavy feet above, growing louder. I felt a sudden chill, a premonition of evil: ‘This isn’t the Vicar, it is someone else. They’re looking for me!’

As the footsteps approached, I heard an eerie creaking from the tree above, and the dim light shrank to nothing, leaving me blinking at whirling after-images. The Tree had closed! I was in utter darkness, hidden from that threatening presence above, but trapped, buried alive, with a skeleton for company.

Chapter Four

The Ouvron

Long minutes passed as I stood in the freezing darkness, afraid to move for fear they would hear me, not wanting to think about the possibility that I would never get out, and thinking over and over, ‘The Vicar, the Vicar knows I’m here, he’ll be back.’ But gradually, as the minutes passed, it began to occur to me that he could have been killed, or he could have been in league with them, the Athmadites. I was sure it was they who had approached, before the tree closed. They would come with axes and chainsaws and cut their way in, and shoot me like a trapped pig in a pit. Or worse, torture me, and use this treasure, the Key, possessing unknown powers, for evil ends. ‘They must not get the Ouvron…’ I thought, gripping it in my cold yet sweaty hands.

‘The French word, ouvrir, to open!’ I muttered, a sudden hope rising within. ‘Could this Ouvron literally be a kind of key, to another place – from here? The knight came out of this tree – from where? Perhaps there’s a tunnel!’

I held the medallion in my fingers and raised it with both hands to my blind face, rubbing it with my thumbs, feeling the contours, imagining the silver getting shinier and shinier. I smelt the amber, a fresh, wonderfully rich smell which reminded me of pine needles and forests in sunlight. Slowly a strange feeling began to come over me, as if my mind’s eye was being opened to another kind of sight. The Ouvron began to gleam with a golden light – or was that just because I was staring at it in the dark so intently? The amber island and the sea surrounding it were definitely glowing now. I felt that the Ouvron could help me, somehow, somehow… Then I saw a tunnel of light open up like a torch-beam from the glowing disk, and at the end of the beam was a white horse in a peaceful green field, calling to me without words. I yearned to step into that place, but I was afraid. It was not of this Earth, I felt sure… Then the entrancing vision began to fade, and in its place I saw something far more pedestrian: my bicycle, leaning against the fence where I had left it!

I stepped toward the bicycle, as if in a dream. There was a crackling sound and a slight smell of ozone (I thought), and branching tunnels of pure, empty blackness seemed to open around me for a second, obscuring the bicycle. Another fearful step into the unknown, and then bliss! I was blinking in the blessed morning light. I was out of the tree, out of the churchyard, standing in the street outside the church where I had parked my bicycle, a little down from the gates. I looked for the white horse, half expecting to see it, but of course it was not there. I reached shakily for the handlebars and pocketed the Ouvron, which was now quite warm, almost hot, as if it had been a channel for some power, not