Where did the Grail go when the attempt to use it failed?
Joseph of Arimathea, along with Nicodemus, took the body of Jesus and buried it. It is said he also came into possession of the Grail, which had been in Jesus’s hands and brought out at what the Christians call the Last Supper. It is at this event that Jesus was arrested — but why at that moment when he had been preaching for so long? Perhaps because he was bringing the Grail out and was going to share of it with his followers? That is my suspicion.
And who would want to stop him and take the Grail for their own? I suspect The Mission, The Ones Who Wait, and the Watchers.
There was a Roman named Tacitus, a military man, whose name I have discovered written in many old documents. I believe this is the name Aspasia’s Shadow used during this time. He was in Jerusalem in A.D. 33, and sought to get control of the Grail.
There is another twist that came from this that I have investigated, that of the Sang Real.
There are scholars who believe the Sang Real to indicate that Christ had children and that his bloodline exists to this day, hidden perhaps by some secret cabal of the Vatican. However, it is much more literal than that.
When I was in the Himalayas, I talked to an old monk who told me of a small group of people he called the ubyr. He said they were men and women who drank the blood of others searching for the elixir of life. In Russia they are called upyr. In Eastern Europe they are known as vampir. In the many places I have traveled I have asked about such people, and I am amazed at the number of legends in far-flung places concerning them.
And what do the blood-drinkers seek? Eternal life.
This is what I believe the Sang Real is — the desire to drink of the blood of a person who has touched the Grail and try to gain eternal life out of their blood.
“Remember he wrote this decades before Bram Stoker corrupted the image of the vampire into what is our modern myth,” Che Lu said. “In, fact, from what Isabel wrote, it appears that Stoker got the idea of vampires from talking with Burton.”
Yakov ran a hand through his thick beard. “There are stories that Stalin had his secret police performing experiments on prisoners, draining their blood, searching for some rare strain that would bring longer life. And Von Seeckt told us of the SS’s fascination with blood. He was injected with some alien blood in a ceremony of the SS.”
“This gives us a little insight into the Grail,” Che Lu said. “It must affect the blood somehow, perhaps adding something to it that improves the health and life span of the recipient. And the concept has made its way out into the world and been corrupted by these people who drink the blood of others.”
“Perhaps the Grail simply injects Airlia blood into human and mixes them,” Yakov said. “We know The Ones Who Wait are human-Airlia clones, so there is some compatibility.”
“Do you know how unlikely it is that our DNA could be mixed with that of an alien race and produce a viable life-form?” Che Lu asked.
“That is not my area of expertise,” Yakov said.
“It isn’t mine either,” Che Lu said, “but common sense says the odds would be extremely low of a compatible match.”
“But the Airlia have technology we don’t know about,” Yakov said. “Perhaps they could manipulate the material on both sides to find a match in the middle.”
“It is more likely that—” Che Lu began, but then she stopped herself. “What were you going to say?”
Che Lu shook her head. “I will wait to find out more before I say anything else on this matter. Let us read on.”
Joseph of Arimathea secretly left Jerusalem with the Grail. He undertook a most perilous journey, traveling far to remove himself and the Grail from the reach of the Roman Empire and Tacitus, a most difficult task in those days. He left behind agents who spread misinformation about the location of the Grail, hoping to keep Tacitus and The Mission focused in the Middle East while he took it far away.
He finally came to Britain, an island that had resisted Roman invasion for many years and, truth be told, a land with little to offer a conqueror. A land where the Watchers had established their headquarters after the destruction of Atlantis. I read his report on his arrival in England, one of the Watcher scrolls, and there is no doubt Joseph was a Watcher, trying to put right what had been thrown askew by the appearance of the Grail in the Middle East.
It seems that Joseph’s decision to leave the Middle East was a wise one and his agents did a most credible job of making The Mission believe the Grail was still there — perhaps too good of a job, as Tacitus continued to press his search using the Roman army as the blunt force to do so.
In A.D. 67 Jerusalem was overrun by the Romans under the command of Titus, with his military adviser Tacitus at his side, after fierce fighting. It is said that over a million Jews were killed or sold into slavery. The Temple was destroyed, taken apart stone by stone, the city ravaged.
But the Grail was safe and disappeared from sight for several centuries, protected by the Watchers at Avalon.
Che Lu cleared her throat to say something, but she was saved from doing so when Major Quinn entered the conference room. “We’ve had to stand down the exfil choppers. There’s no way they can make it near the Nile without being spotted, especially since we’ve lost the AWACS ability to jam radars. Our government is protesting the destruction of the plane and the loss of the crew to the Egyptians, but it’s a confused situation to say the least. The Egyptians are countering that we’ve invaded their country twice now.”
“What can we do?” Yakov asked.
“I’ve managed to get a live feed from a surveillance satellite over the area. We can try to keep track — that’s about it.”
CHAPTER 18
Turcotte slowly splashed his way down the tunnel, the water of the Nile urging him along. His shoulders were slumped and his step was heavy. The men he had led were dead, Duncan was gone with Aspasia’s Shadow, and the Grail and Ark were with him. The mission had been a complete failure.
When the clatter of metal on stone came from behind, he found it difficult to increase his pace. The clicking noise was getting closer and the ceiling was sloping down, the channel growing tighter. In the dim glow of the flashlight he could see the little airspace he had now was completely gone in twenty meters.
The noise from behind had stopped, but he was caught between the foo-fighter sentry and the water-filled tunnel ahead. He moved forward until his face was turned up, pressed against the rock ceiling. It occurred to Turcotte that something might have changed in the past hundred years since Burton went this way, but he didn’t care.
Turcotte took several deep breaths, then he pulled his head down and went with the current, legs kicking to add speed, but the effort felt wasted as the water took control. He was tumbled about, hitting the wall of the tunnel several times.
Just as he thought he couldn’t last any longer, he saw daylight above. He kicked, using the last of his air. Turcotte broke the surface, gulped in air, and blinked in the harsh rays of the sun, trying to get his bearings. He tread water, turning away from the sun, and saw the pyramids, the Great Sphinx before them, farther upstream and to the west.
Turning, Turcotte saw an Egyptian patrol boat, forward machine-gun manned, heading straight toward them from upstream. He was too tired to even attempt to swim away, not that he could outswim the boat anyway.
Lexina ran her hands across the High Runes etched in the surface of the black tube. “It is not Artad’s resting place.” She turned toward the black wall which had just stopped its slow retreat across the chamber after clearing the end of the tube. “He rests further within. This—” she tapped the tube “—is a guard who must awaken before the wall goes any further.”