The eye of the lion

Tom Barrow started to climb the hill at midday.

He’d spent two days in a cold damp cave, waiting for the shower of ashes to end so that he could continue on his way. Now he knew where he was going.

During the second night, in a very vivid dream, he had seen himself walking through a small valley at the foot of a hill, and a black girl had appeared at his side. Tom had stopped to greet her and the girl, smiling, had simply pointed to the top of a grassy hill. Tom had turned to look at the hill, and when he turned back the girl had disappeared. Then he started to walk towards the hill and climb it. When he was about to reach the top, he’d woken up.

The dream wouldn’t have been anything special, except that it recurred the second day. And then the third. Then Tom realized that it was no ordinary dream.

Unfortunately, hardly had he left the cave, the shower of ash gave way to radioactive rain and Tom had to hurry back to the cave. He knew what it was and he didn’t like the idea of taking a shower in that water. That night he had to eat a whole lot of ants from an ant-hill rather than go mad from the hunger that was gnawing at his stomach. The next day, as it was still raining, he ate his crocodile-skin belt. He dreamed the same dream again that night.

Finally, on the fourth day, the rain cleared and Tom left the cave. He walked almost the whole morning and at midday he’d reached the little valley of his dream.

The dreams had been so realistic that for a moment Tom waited for the black girl to appear and point him to the green hill. But it didn’t happen. The girl didn’t appear, but it didn’t matter. Tom Barrow knew where he needed to go, so that’s what he did. Dirty and exhausted he started to climb the hill of his dream, dragging rather than carrying his scant possessions.

Finally he reached the top and looked ahead of him. Far in the distance, a farm-house seemed to emerge from a green wood. Smoke was coming out of the chimney and a mobile home could be seen next to the house.

His heart jumped for joy in his chest. He would have

shouted, but he was too weak to waste the energy. He slowly started to walk towards the farm-house.

Marina cut a few more slices of bacon and threw them into the frying-pan next to some eggs which were cooking slowly. Aeesha was making some golden waffles at her side.

The black girl had told her that morning that they would need to make more breakfast, because a man would be coming to stay with them. Marina hadn’t doubted it for a minute, so she’d set an extra plate at the table.

A few minutes later, when we were about to start breakfast, a knock at the door made us all jump, except for the two girls.

Mark stood up and looked at the girls, not knowing what to do. Jessica grabbed her pistol from a nearby table and looked at us for a moment, disconcerted. I offered to open the door, but Marina came up to me and took me gently by the arm.

“No, I’ll go,” she said, her voice almost tender. “There won’t be any trouble.”

I looked at her for a moment and then at Aeesha. She nodded, her face calm. Then I understood that they knew what it was about and I nodded in turn.

Marina went to the door and opened it.

Tom Barrow looked at her for a moment and drew a sad, tired smile. It was as though talking would be a huge effort.

“Excuse me...” murmured the poor guy. “But I saw your house from a distance and...” The smell of breakfast reached his nostrils at that point, and he stopped. He looked at Marina and wept silent tears.

“I’m hungry...” he murmured, his voice weak.

Marina smiled a sweet mother’s smile, like a Renaissance Madonna, full of tenderness and compassion. She took Tom’s hand and without speaking she led him in, closing the door.

In the sky, surrounded by a multi-colored halo, the sun shone with its pale yellow glow.

Four months later, on the night of a full moon, Joshua was born.

Doctor Cole supervised the birth, supported by Aeesha.

Jessica, Tom and I stayed in the living-room, expectant, while Barrow made copious notes in a note-book he always had with him.

Mark had gone out a while ago to look at the sky and only the three of us were left, waiting tensely. Jessica, next to me, suddenly grabbed my hand.

“I’m afraid,” she murmured.

“What are you afraid of?” I asked her, looking in her brown eyes. But she didn’t have to answer me. I felt it too. We all knew it. That birth was not just one more baby coming into the world in ruins we now lived in. It was a human creation conceived by a genius, twisted mind, the sick dream of a man trying to glimpse a divinity that was veiled from human

understanding. But also maybe, just maybe, something that we were hardly beginning to understand and that would mark the beginning of a new era for man, or perhaps its true ending.

And so, minutes later, the cry of a new-born baby broke the silence of the night, touching the hearts of all who heard it.

Outside, on the patio, Mark was looking at the stars when he heard it.

He crossed his arms and looked towards the horizon, towards the north.

They’ll come soon, he thought. Soon his brothers would come to find him, guided by the signal that his tiny tracker in the form of a Greek cross was emitting from the top of the hill, where he’d gone to bury it on the night of the Apocalypse.

Soon his tracking teams in Egypt or Sudan would pick up the signal and find him. They might take a month, or two years, but they would come.

They would come and find him and they would find the child. They would find him and then his Templar brothers would end the heresy incarnated in that abomination, and then, only then, would God send his son again to judge man and the end of all time would come.

The sacrifices he’d made all this time to be near the child counted for nothing, as did the ones he had still to make.

It didn’t matter at all that he’d already had to kill his own team-mates, in that tunnel at Netgen, or even that he’d had to shoot himself so as not to awaken anybody’s suspicion.

Even the death of old Randall, who he’d had to beat up a little more after the accident, to facilitate his death, mattered very little now, despite the fact that Randall had treated him like a son.

The Great Master of the order had blessed him with a sacred mission and nothing mattered more than this, not even his own life.

He turned towards the house and listened to the baby’s cry. He smiled to himself. He put his hands in his pants’ pockets and started to walk slowly back to the house.

In the sky, over the little farm-house, a new star was glowing, out-shining all the others.

Moments later, Joshua had stopped crying and was asleep.

His age had begun.

The End