God's Lions - The Dark Ruin
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Authors: John Lyman
THE DARK RUIN
John Lyman
ALSO BY JOHN LYMAN
God’s Lions – The Secret Chapel
God’s Lions – House of Acerbi
Editorial reviews for “God’s Lions – The Secret Chapel” (The first book in the “God’s Lions” series)
“Readers who enjoy religious tales filled with symbols and mysteries will find themselves well-supplied.”
J.C. Martin, Arizona Daily Star Newspaper
“A thrilling ride through fact and faith. Lyman skillfully blends scientific facts and religious mythology to propel the reader through a marvelous story to a satisfying, if startling conclusion. He paints realistic characters and puts them in terrific binds. Excellent fiction that I waited too long to read!
Ron Franscell, Bestselling author of “Delivered from Evil”
“Well researched and masterfully woven, this novel will glue you to your seat and have you hanging on with your fingernails.”
“Books like this make one think outside of what you think you know about the world.”
“I could not put this book down – absolutely unpredictable.”
“Simply thrilling! If you read anyone this year, put this author on your short list.”
“In a sequel even better than ‘The Secret Chapel’, John Lyman has put forth an exhilarating tale filled with twists and suspense. If you believe the Bible hides important codes about the future of mankind, or love a Crichton-esque drama, ‘House of Acerbi’ will exceed your expectations. You won’t want to put it down until you’re done.”
“God’s Lions- House of Acerbi” was the perfect sequel to “The Secret Chapel”. Whether you’re into religious fiction or techno-thrillers, this one has it all ... another terrific spiritual thriller that I couldn’t put down.”
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
© 2012 John Brooks Lyman
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
ISBN: 978-1-4800-0472-6 (print)
Cover art by Travis Schmidt
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First and foremost I want to thank my wonderful wife, Leigh Jane Lyman. Without her help you probably wouldn’t be reading this right now. I also want to thank all of my test readers for their valuable feedback and support, especially Chuck Autrey here in the United States, and Shaneese Robinson, my test reader across the pond.
For my grandmother, Evelyn Kingery Wehling
“A Beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast, the less he knows it.”
George MacDonaldPREFACE
Writing a sequel is always difficult. After I wrote “God’s Lions-The Secret Chapel”, it was evident from the amount of email I received that readers wanted more, thus the “God’s Lions” series was born. Although I have endeavored to make each book a stand-alone novel, I wanted to provide an historical perspective relating to the Cathars who featured so prominently in the second novel in the series, “God’s Lions-House of Acerbi”. Therefore, I have decided to include a brief history of the Cathars to provide some background for readers who haven’t read the first two books, and perhaps serve as a refresher for those who have.
The origin of the Cathars remains something of a mystery. They were a religious group that suddenly appeared in the Languedoc region of southern France in the 11
th
century long before the days of the Protestant Reformation that eventually changed the face of religion in the Christian world forever. The Cathars had been a separate religion from Catholicism—the word Cathar coming from the Greek
Katharoi
, meaning “pure ones”. Unlike other medieval movements, they had formed their own system of religious beliefs centered on kindness to others, the rejection of material wealth, and the promise of universal redemption inspired by Christ and his disciples.
They alleged that the physical world was evil and created by the Satan-like god they called
Rex Mundi
. He was known as “
the king of the world
” who ruled over all that was physical, chaotic, and powerful. The other god, the one whom the Cathars worshipped, was a higher god—a god of love—a pure spirit that embraced his human followers. They believed that Jesus Christ was his messenger and referred to themselves as Christians, but the Catholic Church called them something else. To the medieval Catholic Church, the Cathars were heretics.
At the time, the Languedoc region of southern France that the Cathars lived in was not really considered a part of France. The culture of the area was still rooted in the feudal system, but the enlightened Cathars refused to swear an oath to any feudal lord. By the early 13
th
century, the tolerant and liberal beliefs of the Cathars had become the dominate religion in the area, much to the annoyance of the Catholic Church which was being held up to public ridicule when its bejeweled abbots and priests, dressed in their best finery, preached poverty and demanded tithes to be paid to them in the name of the Church. The Cathars referred to the Catholic Church as the
Church of the Wolves
, while the Catholics countered with accusations that the Cathars belonged to the
Synagogue of Satan
.
And so it went, back and forth, until finally, the Church had had enough. After the French King, Phillip Augustus, refused to intervene, Pope Innocent III called for a crusade against the Cathars of the Languedoc and formed a
Holy Army
. The first military leader of this army was a Cistercian abbot by the name of Arnaud Amaury, a churchman with a sadistic penchant for terror and killing. He is best remembered for a command he shouted to his troops before they entered the town of
Béziers
in 1209. When asked by his soldiers how they could differentiate between the Catholics and Cathars, he said
“Kill them all ... God will know his own!”
During this period of history, a war of terror was waged against the indigenous population of the Languedoc by the Church. An estimated 500,000 Languedoc men, women, and children were massacred—Catholics as well as Cathars. During the attack on
Béziers
, the doors to the church of St. Mary Magdalene were broken down, and over 7000 men, women, and children were reportedly dragged out and slaughtered. Thousands of others in the same town were blinded, mutilated, dragged behind horses, burned at the stake, and used for target practice before the holy crusader army burned the city to the ground.
After the siege, Arnaud proudly wrote to Pope Innocent III,
“Today, Your Holiness, twenty thousand heretics were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex.”
Later, after the massacre at
Béziers
, Simon de Monfort, an especially dangerous and cruel baron who had successfully laid siege to the walled city of Carcassonne, was designated as the new leader of the Crusader army. The war against the Cathars continued on and off through the 14
th
century, setting the precedent for the various church-sponsored inquisitions that were to follow. In the end, an entire culture had almost been exterminated from the face of the Earth in what can only be described as church-sanctioned genocide. The crusade against the Cathars of the Languedoc has been described by historians as one of the greatest human disasters in history on par with that of the Jewish Holocaust in World War II.
PROLOGUE
THE FERTILE CRESCENT – 10,000 B.C.
On the day the entity returned, a small gathering of primitive nomadic tribesmen were sitting on a crude stone floor, staring up at a massive limestone monolith that towered above their heads. The men were looking at the carved image of a snake, its forked tongue flicking outward, and in a bas-relief tableau that wrapped around all four sides of the gigantic block of stone, they could see other creatures, mostly predators, including leopards, wolves, and scorpions.
Encircled by twelve similar monoliths, a blackened area on the floor marked the spot where a fire had burned overnight, keeping the darkness at bay while the men moved the last stone giant into place. Now, with the sun peeking over the horizon, no one dared to speak, for even though they knew the thing was coming, they feared their words might anger the dark apparition that had haunted their dreams for so long.
For the past two years the men had toiled under a blazing sun to do what the entity had commanded of them. They had worked day in and day out, hacking gigantic blocks of stone from a nearby hillside to be used in the construction of something that was a total mystery to them, and already a dozen of their number had been killed—crushed to death before they had learned the finer points of moving heavy stone objects that weighed over sixteen tons.
In the years preceding the appearance of the entity, this tightly-knit band of hunter-gatherers had roamed the land at will, sleeping under the stars while maintaining a close bond with Mother Earth. They had moved from one place to another following the herds of animals that provided their food and clothing, and like their ancestors before them, they had drunk clear water from free-flowing rivers and wandered through vast green forests where the game was always plentiful and fresh.
Compared to their modern-day brethren, they had lived a relatively idyllic life, but on a warm spring day, as they camped on a grassy plain beneath a potbelly-shaped hill, something had happened—something that was so frightening to these people that they had suddenly ceased their wandering ways to begin construction of something that was completely useless to them.