The Order of the Sword: The Knights Templar

By Christopher JB.

A butterfly flaps its wings, and on the other side of the world a hurricane is formed. If only Rohan Frith could be certain of the choices before him—anything that could help him understand more about the mysterious organization that has turned his world to chaos.

Rohan is a disillusioned young print presser whose curiosity has drawn him into the world of the occult. A series of strange events leads him to delve into a shadowy order, and medieval fantasy now intermingles with his modern life in secretive and inexplicable ways—mysterious sightings of monks, a poster request at work for a deserter, and the appearance of ancient parchments. Through these connections to ancient conquered holy lands, he finds himself on an unimaginable adventure, thereby gaining unexpected insight into the world around him.

A tale of mystery, action, and misadventure, this novel moves between the modern and the medieval as it tells the story of a young man’s journey toward mystical truths.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Feb 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781504319935

Christopher JB.

Christopher JB has written short stories, novellas, and graphic novels and is the author of the short story “A Shuffle and a Deal,” appearing in the collection Inkshed, and the graphic novel The Dreamstones. He is a member of the Eastern Writers Group and performs with the Port Melbourne musical group Sol Green. He currently lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Book preview

The

Order

of the

Sword

THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR

CHRISTOPHER JB.

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Copyright © 2020 Christopher JB.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com.au

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-1992-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-1993-5 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 02/13/2020

CONTENTS

Prelude

Chapter 1 Pea Soup

Chapter 2 The Tones of Deluge

Chapter 3 How Much is that Monster in the Window?

Chapter 4 Chanting by Candlelight

Chapter 5 Faces of a Coin

Chapter 6 An Ivory Tusk

Chapter 7 The Parchment

Chapter 8 Sealed Conference

Chapter 9 St. Francis

Chapter 10 Shadow Men

Chapter 11 Sea Fare

Chapter 12 Dark Reign

Chapter 13 The Fisher King

Chapter 14 Hike or Pilgrimage?

Chapter 15 Should we three meet again

Chapter 16 Time Freeze

Chapter 17 War Games

Chapter 18 Runaway on the Train

Chapter 19 The Antique Shop

Chapter 20 Requiem of Madness

Chapter 21 Garden Top

Chapter 22 The Old of The Mountain

Chapter 23 ‘I’ The Scribe

Chapter 24 Tonight, we summon

Chapter 25 Incense for the Pilgrims

Chapter 26 The Treasurer

Chapter 27 Maintaining the Favor

Chapter 28 The Joust

Chapter 29 St Catherine’s

Chapter 30 Traitor in the Midst

Chapter 31 On guard!

Chapter 32 Kept in the Dark

Chapter 33 The Observatory

Chapter 34 The Battle of Fort Jacobs

Chapter 35 August 27th 1179

Chapter 36 Disbanded

Chapter 37 The Day of Reckoning

Chapter 38 The Battle of Hattin

Chapter 39 The Secrets of the Order

A butterfly flaps its wings and on the other side of the world, a hurricane is formed

*Chaos Theory

PRELUDE

Reality is not my specialty. I tend to drift and tome my way through the weeks, never paying too close attention to the facts and apparent beliefs that so many adhere to.

They cling to their beliefs of a better understanding, whereas I tend to think the opposite of everything I come across. Does it tend to make me confused, no, merely curious as to what this huge rat race and cat and mouse game is all about.

Excuse me?’

‘You’ve got nothing to be excused about!’

‘Why thank you.’

‘Read between the lines’

‘You’ll be forgotten but not forgiven.’

‘I’ being the scribe of a secretive order, have transcripts of the inner workings and occurrences. I am lucky to have escaped the plight of this infamous brotherhood of militia, and have returned then, sane and in well-being with the knowledge of their inner doctrine and the knowledge of their secretive treasure. Many would pay to hear such wisdom, though one is to only look upon the transcripts and see for themselves the works of this divine order, who have been misjudged and misconceived in history, only to have been brought to the light of present times, when their knowledge and power is most prevalent.

The scribe

Being the third order of the Knights Templar, I Rohen, the scribe, has been foretold

through the study of archives and the recording of the deeds; the ever-changing history

Of the order of monks devoted to the cause and their chivalry, poverty and discipline.

I

Pea Soup

I t was well into the hours of enforced blackout in our town, when all the natural light had eroded. Being replaced by moonlight, this seemed omnipresent during the fog.

When I looked up I could eventually make its distinct glowing, like a great jellyfish in the sea. The eeriness was completed by the fact that the streets were empty from curfew, and a stormy sky was passing over.

Everything was left concealed, with the fog of war. The cobblestones clacked under leather shoes, as the few out goers of this forsaken hour, muttered, heading home. Shift workers whose teethe chattered and their bones chilled to the marrow.

Fireplaces were disused in this age, and chimney sweepers made money selling old newspapers to homes who wished to hear of better times.

I passed by a pauper, who had a sign on his chest, Rooms vacant. He had an equally vacant expression; the five-mile stare of battle fatigue. I paused to look into the building he was offering for the night. It seemed to be held together with cobwebs. The window was masked up to prevent shattering from the bombs that fell. It seemed to have had little effect, as a crater lay right outside the door, its shell causing most of the building to cave in from the shock wave.

I moved on with speed, clanging the streets with my steel cap shoes. Tonight, I was heading for a secret destination, only known to its guests and the few who worked at the printing place. I had just knocked off from the latter, supposedly heading home for a cold dinner.

All the copying and printing of invitation cards for the district was done at the Respites Quick Prints place on Neforn Rd. I had made myself a certain card out of a set, memorizing names so as not to look too much like an outsider when I arrived alone. I had chosen to go to this venue because of the theme. Mr. Crawls futuristic party. Formally ‘from another planet’ attire. BYO sense of direction.

I liked his style, so I prepared with the little time I had to spare on my lunch hour.

I had dug up some silver and bought an alien mask and wore a huge collared jacket, looking like a farmer’s illusion. According to my pocket watch, Two Bob, I had half an hour to arrive at the busiest time of the party, where I could slip in unannounced and unquestioned.

Running late according to Two Bob, I made my way across a field, churned with battery fire and into the aerodrome area, through some barb wire fence with wire cutters. I found the hanger with the party sign hanging like it belonged to a ghost towns.

A military truck stutters into life. Headlights staccato like Morse code, as the driver struggles with the motor starter. I fear it must be signaling to the enemy ships at sea until the driver gets the motor running and turns the lights off. The truck jolts into action and rumbles by, its radio signing softly into the darkness.

A disused hanger by the outskirts where test planes were once kept. Now charred from exhaust fumes of big planes, and rusted from exposure. A good location for a futuristic party I thought. I see the control tower though it has no visible lights. All its occupants use night vision, because a lit tower is like a lighthouse to batteries upon ships out at sea. I hear an incoming signal crackle from above in the control rooms, and footsteps of a runner.

They decode incoming signals, but make none of their own, not until their frequency can be secured again. Till then feet do the work of machines, pigeons too even.

I hear the sound of what I think is a giant bird flapping its wings, I pass the control tower and look out to the air strip. I see a windsock fluttering in the breeze, and I stand, bemused at whether it catches giant bugs and ponder as to its pair, probably on another airfield somewhere, or on some giant’s feet.

It begins to spit when I reach my destination and come under the hangers cover. Rain peppers the tin roof like gunfire from an air raid. The mood is joyous, as people surrender their coats to the cloak room, some even actually have cloaks, but keep onto them, as part of their costume.

A girl dressed as an angel from another world asks an emissary for an off-world planet,

‘Have you seen the cryogenic men.’

‘No I haven’t,’ (He is impassive like a true diplomat) ‘Have you seen the Military Police,’

‘What they’ve already found out we’re using their hangers?’ She begins to turn around to the exit sign which it flashing in different colors.

‘No! Don’t leave. We haven’t even entered yet. I mean people dressed as futuristic Military Police, from a Martial Law world.’

‘Oh just as well, my parents really think I’m an angel.’ She runs her finger down the hemline of the dress, ‘This costume is from a pageant they put me in.’

‘Excuse me,’ I interrupt them as I hand over my invitation.

‘Rohan Frith’ announces the doorman, reading slowly.

‘Frith, that’s an unusual name!’ exclaims the angel.

I look to each of them and ask, ‘I wonder whether you can point out Mr. Crawl to me?’

‘It would be my honor,’ responds the emissary, with the air of a real official.

I don’t have to wait long until more aliens arrive and I blend into the crowd. One of them has a helmet that he takes it off and quickly everyone pour their drinks into it to make a punch bowl.

A punch bowl with about one percent punch that is.

We toast to a brave new world. The emissary nods in the direction and I catch a glimpse of Mr. Crawl on top of a rusted jeep. He stands with moon boots, points with gloves, and stares with dark sockets that look like sunglasses under his hood, but be could be suffering from an insomniac’s condition. He pauses as if he’s just received a communication from the wires pointing out of his jacket.

‘I just got a telemetry transmission from the Io people. They say they’ll be here by the dawn to destroy the earth, so they warned us we’d better try to have the time of our lives tonight!’

I believe he’d been practicing that joke for a while, delivered well, as everyone was enjoying themselves before and now they were ecstatic.

Someone was handing out appetizers with little dolphins printed on them. The emissary drags me though the crowd of people, and I take one from the dish. He loses me in the throngs of aliens and I begin to stare at the punch bowl. I begin to see shark fins swimming in it.

My concentration is diverted from the drink bowl for a second and I feel the appetizer doing its work as I talk to Mr. Crawl, I can somehow keep one eye darting over the people adding to the punch with their own hip flasks and bottles. It’s as if I can put my cognitive brain on auto pilot and study something completely else at the same time.

‘Are you a friend of a friend, or a well-wisher?’’ His eyes are like two black holes.

‘Why I didn’t know it was your birthday,’ I reply, not remembering seeing any special occasion on the card, the entire reason I had chosen to come to this venue.

‘It’s not but I thought I didn’t recognize you!’ He starts and some MP’s interrupt, with drinks and smokes, passing out their indulgences to us.

‘Not to worry not to worry,’ interrupts the emissary, ‘we’re all here to have fun.’

‘Of course,’ Mr. Crawls mood changes, and it puts me to ‘off guard’ mode the entire night.

From him I hear about things over shore. It seems that there have been many ships lost without a trace, a lot of them coming into our very town’s harbor.

It’s a real concern and it shows on his face as he looks around.

‘No one has interrupted any transmissions from enemy planes or ships, but people are suspecting a spy who might be using torches as Morse code for giving the co-ordinates of our ships. They’ve got a plant in the harbor, scouring for fishermen and locals who talk too easily to strangers.’

‘Any luck so far?’ I ask

‘Not as such. That’s all I can tell.’

Somewhere in the night I sat down on a couch and watch the moon through the gaps in the hanger doors. It loses its loony luminescence and the sun’s light grows, shadows of the doormen are like giants stretching into the confines of the party. The rain ceases.

Outside a puddle is all that remains the storm. It has an icy layer, scratching its surface with my shoe I feel it’s water enter through a gap in them and I’ve entered a realm of coldness. The bitter night’s air returns and spreads up my body, I shiver as I make my way over towards the grass hilltop. I dry my feet out by dangling them over some rocks where the wind is fierce from an offshore breeze.

I follow a ravine gurgling down beneath the side of the hill and a rocky outcrop. It flows out to sea, slowly deepening as it gathers strength before washing away. This noisy stream is interrupted by the shore hissing and inhaling, the wind buffets the ravine, making echoes of all the water sounds.

Stepping stones lead across it and towards the ocean it spills a short distance, creating a waterfall of tranquility.

Some other willful revelers are wading in small rock pools. Spacemen make fish bowels out of these with their helmets, as mementos of the night. The angel looks out to sea with a tumultuous smile, whilst there is a daemon with his eyes caught by the fiery glow of the dawning sun.

Turning around I decide to follow the stream to its source, and find it belong to a waste source, channeled from the factory grounds, oozing productiveness from the machines of man.

Just as I step a stone to cross the stream I feel a mild electric shock. There is a thin wire fence which is running along one side of the ravine. A sign says to beware. I find it strange that neither the fence or the sign are visible from a distance.

So, I walk back to the beach and hear the angel talking once again to the emissary

‘Have you tried to count them all?’ she asks him.

‘Count what?’

‘The stars of course. I wish I could slide them all together like an abacus, and count them all in this manner, but the sun always comes along and I lose count.’

Agreeably, I step up to the rocky outcrop and say,

‘Like the one that outdoes them all, we forget the millions that passed before.’ I squint in the sun’s direction. Out to sea it creates a long shadow rippling. Deeper waves are being created by it as we discourse.

The angel takes off her halo and throws it down into the ravine. It lands in the river and is carried over the waterfall out to the ocean.

She begins to sing slowly

‘For the ones that have been, and the one’s that will be,

We can only see what we’re shown, and only what is known.

Yet the beyond is never always that far removed from our grasp,

Only walls of illusion that melt away too fast.’

She turns after pausing as if on a sudden thought to look at me, regarding my pale complexion in the natural light.

‘It is like a flame that rids its wax and burns alone from the fury of the air itself.’ I suggest, feeling strangely beyond tired.

‘So truths are spoken,’ she repeats, ‘when all is said and done and we’re removed from the walls of illusion.’

I stagger up the cliffs face and wade through its tufts of grass that are swaying in the offshore breeze. The gravel crunching under my feet tells me the end of the beach, and the beginning of the man-made land has begun. The first stake in the ground, the railroad sign. I follow the tracks when they appear under my feet and I climb up and onto the platform to rest on the seat.

As the train begins to take off I find the slow motion makes me, and then it speeds up and we leave the slow pace of the street and beach behind. It all becomes a motion of lights and flashes, as we pass through the tunnel and out towards an outcrop where livestock balance precariously on the side of the steep decline. They’re grasping and ripping at the tufts of grass which grow out the side like the hair of an animal’s ear.

I pull a book out of my pocket and try to read, but the writing jitters across the page, like it’s reading itself and I’m just sitting there fixed on a space on the page. I flicker my eyes to rest them a while but they want to stay closed. The ride becomes a smooth lullaby, and I begin to drift into a doze.’

I hear someone sit down beside me. Unwillingly my head rests on their shoulder. They get up and switch seats. All the time I am half asleep.

Where are we now? I awaken and take a peak, then I look at the passenger beside me.

The white lights from the UV has a draining effect on her features. She looks so pale. All the finesse and tone of the skin is merged into a pasty cream from the forehead to the chin. The blonde eyelashes become two pale Venus fly traps. I study them as they close, like they’re going to feed on some prey. Just as they open, I notice a familiar sign out the side of my eye. My stop. I take my bag and dismount the ride.

Up ahead someone gets off and crosses the lights. It’s you again, the one who keeps crossing my path. The lights go ‘tic tac’ for me, and I remember my breath must smell bad so I chew some gum. Overtake. You’re slow and I’m behind. I’m getting closer and you look behind.

‘Excuse me have you got the time?’

Now let’s see I had the weather, my invitation, ticket and ah yes Two Bob.

I hear a rooster crow and bird fluttering from a tree. Two Bob says I’m almost at the hour when I usually get up for the morning. Got to beat the alarm before it wakes everyone up and they find I’m not there.

I head up the path towards the gate. Creaking on its hinges, someone must awake.

It seems that the dawn sky was visible in short bursts during the night, as the storms lightening made it look like day was breaking and fading. Then finally the light lengthened to the accustomed hour, and the storm’s energy dissipated and we could hear it in the distance.

I reach the door and look back again. It swings wide.

‘What are you doing out there on the doorstep?’

‘Fetching the paper after my jog.’

‘Let’s read it then.’

The paper is placed on the kitchen table and everyone gathers around to hear the news of a bygone time.

‘Why did they call it the roaring twenties Dad?’

‘Maybe cause they all had roaring fires going all the time. You won’t see those times again,’ says my father who scrunches up the envelopes that came in the mail, makes as if to throw it into the fireplace, and then pauses for effect,

‘Not now with the ban on chimney’s being lit at night.’

They had banned open fireplaces because of the light they emitted from above could be seen by the enemy. Only places with chimney guards were allowed to light fires at night. Since there weren’t any chimney guard stores in town we could only use electric heaters.

II

The Tones of Deluge

T here are parts of our mind that are polished glass, in that they capture and project the sensory experience, not only with quick words like exclamations, or reactions like smiles, but by a way of subversives in the thought process and these only come alive under dream states or hypnosis.

Dreams are the windows into our intake, output and process of material that makes up our experiences.

My concentration last night was diverted by the shark bowel, yet still I could undertake a lengthy and complicated conversation about the possibility of spies in our midst. All the while I was counting sharks, watching them circle in the murky liquid.

It must have had something to do with the dolphin printed appetizers. They say dolphins can switch off parts of their brains, sort of put them onto autopilot and deal with the tasks of everyday whilst they are in a semi-conscious state.

The trade lanes are where most of the stuff comes in from, so perhaps they’ve found some secrets of harvesting on some island out at sea, blending marine life genes into the production line.

I reach to my bookshelf and glimpse through one, open another