Free The Adept Book 3 The Templar Treasure by Katherine Kurtz, Deborah Turner Harris Page B

the Order of the Temple fluttering overhead in the bright sun of desert climes.
    But there was a tension building. Suddenly the equestrian images yielded to a ghostly apparition of King Solomon himself, bearded and potent, majestically robed in flowing vestments of scarlet adorned with Qabalistic symbols, and crowned with a shining golden diadem that looked like a six-pointed star with the points bent up. In his left hand he held up what was surely Nathan’s Seal like a protective talisman. His right hand wielded a sceptre or wand, its tip so brightly glowing that Adam could barely look upon it.
    Adam’s dream-self flung up an arm to shield his eyes, but a word of command from the great King bade him look where the Sceptre pointed. Trembling, Adam obeyed—to find himself being drawn toward a roil of churning yellow cloud, alive with sickly flickerings of greenish-yellow light. From within the clouds came waves of such dread as to make his stomach turn.
    He woke in a cold sweat, gasping, his heart pounding as he instinctively drew on deep protections to envelop and protect him. He did not turn on the light, for by the sliver of light leaking underneath the bedroom door from the hall, he could see that there was nothing physically there. But certain it was that the dream had been a warning—whether merely from his unconscious, embroidering on what he had been reading about Nathan’s speculations regarding the missing Seal, or from some external source, he could not tell.
    But this was not the time or place to find out, alone and in unfamiliar surroundings, without even a clear picture of the problem yet, much less the solution; and certainly not under the added tension of the palpable grief in the Fiennes house. The urgency was unmistakable, but more active investigation must wait until tomorrow, when he returned home, and as more of the background became clearer.
    Yet the residue of menace lingered, so much so that eventually he got up and fetched from the pocket of his suit coat a handsome gold signet ring set with a dark sapphire. Slipping it on his finger as he padded back to bed, he simultaneously offered up a formal prayer for protection and then touched the stone to his lips in salute. The ring was an outward symbol of his esoteric calling, and sometimes a tool of that vocation, and the little ritual grounded him firmly back in the realms of reason.Further ritual before he lay back down again made of his bed a focus of celestial protection—a simple rite known as Sealing the Aura, which called upon the great archangels to guard the quarters and was sealed at last with a six-pointed star. His sleep thereafter was undisturbed by dreams, but he still slept lightly, as a part of him kept watch and pondered what had surfaced.

Chapter Five

    NATHAN FIENNES’ funeral took place shortly before noon the following morning, in the presence of his family and scores of friends and colleagues who had come together in shock and grief to mourn his passing. In keeping with Jewish custom, the service was starkly simple and unpretentious, all the more poignant for the weight of ancient tradition that shaped its form. Adam, sitting directly behind the family in the chapel adjoining the burial ground, was struck, as always, by the commonalities that united all men and women of goodwill, especially at a time of loss.
    “O Lord, what is man that Thou dost regard him, or the son of man that Thou dost take account of him?” the officiating rabbi read. “Man is like a breath, his days are like a passing shadow. Thou dost sweep men away. They are like a dream, like grass which is renewed in the morning. In the morning it flourishes and grows, but in the evening it fades and withers . . .”
    Following along in the service book, caught up in the cadences of ancient ritual, which alternated between Hebrew and English, Adam was yet aware of the physical setting of this farewell and memorial to his departed friend. The chapel itself