In addition, it was only their mystery: his marble angel. And in general, the statue was silent. It did not say anything. He heard the voice only in his head.
«You will be better,» Tonio whispered in his ear long ago, but the meaning of words began to reach him only now. «It will soon pass. Father Donatello says its just one night.»
One night may seem like an eternity in such agony. It was easier to die immediately. Ferdinand suddenly remembered the ritual dagger, which he now had to be with him. Do not reach the handle. In addition, there were observers nearby. It will not be allowed to him to cut himself and to release something burning out of his blood.
«He has it stronger than others,» someone said. Ferdinand did not recognize the voices.
«So he will have more strength than they had.»
The pain inside remained fiery, and the outlines of the world have lost all clarity. It is said that in this state it is easy to hear the voices of supernatural creatures, but he heard only the dialogue of people.
«How do you know how it passed by others?»
«But there are records»
«What if they understood the degree of suffering, so as not to scare the upcoming generations?»
«Then they would have broken a vow. After all, we swear to transfer only the truth in the scripting on paper. Future generations should be aware of what they expect. Otherwise they could not fight against her?»
Against her! Again, someone said that, and Ferdinand did not like how they uttered it. Why not call the devil with his own name, whatever his new shell was. After all, the devil always remains the devil. In any kind. It would be more difficult for many brothers if the devil turned out to be a beautiful young man, which he was by the time of his fame. Many here believed that the young men are much more seductive. Here is Tonio, for example. How gentle is his touch. In the presence of a girl, he would become stone, but he felt some kind of attraction to a friend. Maybe it only seems to him Never in his life he did not experience passion to anyone. Therefore, he was chosen to fight the devil. He will have the final victory over him. Others are easy to tempt, he is not. He just wont feel anything. He makes a blow and thats it. And the walls of the monastery will again hide him from the eyes of people, from all the passion that people can experience to him. And maybe someday he will be proclaimed a saint. For many, he was already so. First, because he did not want to know the sin, secondly, due to the fact that he was chosen to win over the devil.
The head of the Order believed that he had already won. Donatello was sure that he made the right choice, as many and many heads of the Order were confident, when every few hundred years of their pointing finger snatched from the crowd the next favorite. Many of these people were canonized after death, but they themselves simply went into the shadow. The terrible stories came to Ferdinand that these people just went crazy after the devil have looked into theirs eyes. They killed him, but they became his slaves. He died, but he mastered their consciousness, and they were forced to stay alone until the end of their days, struggling with terrible urges inside themselves.
Donatello promised that this would not happen to Ferdinand.
«Youre too clean,» he explained. «Not a drop of wine, not a single night with a courtesan and not at all because in your pockets you didnt have money. You lived among the temptation and did not succumb to them, because you just didnt want. Such and there are real chosen, they simply do not feel the desire to sin. God created you morally very strong. You will do your job, but your reason will remain untouched. If such as you were more in our ranks But someone is special, like the devil, is born only once a few centuries. Such is the idea of the Most High.
In the prophetic gift of Donatello did not doubt no one. Ferdinand had to believe him for word. And he believed until the fire began to burn his blood from the inside.
Their order was also similar to the dragon, just at the same time, almost sleeping. Each cycle they expected the appearance of the catch.
And here it appeared. After the rite, Donatello took him to the hall at the very top. A strange hall with columns, but without glasses and balustrade, blown by all winds. From there, the sea and the sky were visible, and there was an amazing clock under the ceiling.
«This is a clock of the Universe,» Donatello explained. «Devils clock! When the hands meet at the very top, and this happens only once in a few centuries, at the time of the sunrise, which is clearly visible from here, in this moment you will have only one second to strike. Only in this moment the devil is vulnerable. Just one the only second, and it should be enough for you. Do you cope?»
It was not a question, rather a statement. Nevertheless, Ferdinand nodded. The clock consists entirely of gold plates and monograms, firmly crashed into memory. It seemed that they had a living face as an ornate sun disc. So far, it dreamed, obviously, it will wake up only when the decisive moment comes. In this moment, the devil either dies from his hand, or remains in the world already forever, only no longer as a ghost creature, but in the form of a real and only ruler. It all depends on the determination of Ferdinand.
It is stupid to hang such responsibility for a single person, but he will have helpers, a whole order.
This thought was not easier. The image of the clock pursued him, recalling the sleeping supernatural creature with two hands, gears, musical ticks and an ominous golden glitter. How can the creation of the devil be the most beautiful thing that you saw in your life?
«Remember that the mechanism of the Evil One only one second for the centuries works against him himself,» Donatello inspired him.
Now Ferdinand dreamed of this clock, but in dreams they were huge from the floor to the ceiling and further. In dreams they lived. The golden face was smiling. Ferdinand concerned the hands and felt the blood of the cuts immediately flows on the dial. The clock seemed to drink this blood.
Donatello explained to him about this clock not all, but in some of the books stored in the monastery, it was recorded that they mean all divisions, symbols and letters on the hellish mechanism. So far, he knew that one of the hands measures time in the supernatural world, the other in human, and both of the same length. Only one of them moves into the past, as if giving tribute to each cycle of the devil recovery, the second hand moves into the opposite direction. When both hands will meet, the decisive moment comes. Ferdinand instinctively squeezed his hand. When it is time, he will not shake.
Silence. Obviously, the brothers decided that he fell asleep, and left him alone. Only he did not sleep. So the heat drops after the fever: the body is still trembling, but there is no more fire in it. Ferdinand hardly rose. In this state it was madness, he felt very weak, but he wanted to read about the clock now. It did not remain so much time to the decisive blow. Now there was a deep night. Well, night is the best time for prayer. At night, nothing will distract you Is it only except for lechery thoughts, but Ferdinand did not have them. He could not call any object: neither female, nor male, which would attract him.
Although the exception was. Just one thing. The statue in niche. But his love for it was far from physical. It was some kind of piercing spiritual aspiration that could not describe any words. It was his God. It made him morally strong. It deprives all the desires towards people.
Someone from his cousins would laugh, saying that the feeling towards sculpture stands between him and all the brothels of the Universe. The cousins were sad about nothing. Ferdinand left them his titles, estates, land. Many would call him crazy or blissful. He was still. He chose his destination in life.
The strange clock was waiting for him in the hall. Since the initiation, he had the right to all. He could choose those who will be his right and left hand in the fight against evil, could give orders, Donatello temporarily moved to the shadow. Ferdinand was allowed to enter where the other was forbidden. Therefore, he was extremely amazed, noticing someone elses at the clock. The man fell down as a shadow, and more resembled an unearthly winged creature. Actually, there was nothing surprising in meeting near this clock a supernatural creation, but someone was not. The fact that Ferdinand at first accepted for the wings was only the folds of the monastic hood. Just the gray robe was slightly open, hence the feeling of the fact that the wings winks over the old monk.
Ferdinand froze in indecision. In his life, he did not mention the word with his brother Ernesto and was already accustomed to consider the old man a dumb.
Silence came for a long time. Ferdinand began to study the symbols on the clock, and then noticed that there were some wounds and scorched lines under the folded collar, like after torture. Maybe he only seemed that the scars on the Ernesto body add up to the same symbols as on the clock.
He managed to see a little. The lines, for sure, were burning out with fire, such deep and inflamed, as if their carved the dragon burning claws right on the human flesh.
Ferdinand heard that the devil skillfully tortures people, but never saw anything like that. Ernesto smeared the gray robe too quickly. He was gloomy and inconspicuous, as a touching ghost, but in his eyes it was frozen something inexpressible. Suffering, pain, longing, a whole range of negative feelings. Only fear was not in them. Last Ferdinand respected. Full fearlessness.
He suddenly felt sympathy to a gloomy monk.
«I always think about it as the beginning of the world. The devil has so much power over us, because we all started with him. From the moment he became himself, as we now know him,» said Ferdinand
Ferdinand himself did not know why he was set in revelation.
«Sometimes he is not like himself,» Ernesto said. «Sometimes he can become closer to us than God. Be careful, boy!»
There were already many such warnings. Ferdinand got used to them without much attention. He was aware of what risk goes, and it was not scarecrow. But the words of the monk hung like a black cloud. It seemed that he invested in them some kind of special meaning.
He left, went into darkness as an imperceptible shadow. The clock was purely gold, but it seemed that all the darkness of the universe was accumulated within it. It had no eye, nor lips, but Ferdinand felt that they were laughing at him.
It was a fair laughter. They left him just one moment for victory or defeat. Here is really a devilish trick. Ferdinand wanted to move away from it and could not. It seemed to measure the term of his own life. And this term approached the end. But then, how can he be able to defeat the evil, if he will not live.
«Stupid, just one moment,» the clock stated. «To wait for a single moment, you do not have to live for a long time.»
Aspiration
«Why not now?» said James.
«Let the clock are not in a hurry, and we hurry,» it was the moral of three scouts. Bob, James and Renault hurried to him with news. Father Donatello naturally did not know anything. He would not allow anything like that. Ferdinand also had doubts. He himself would not be ahead of the events, but three young people kept their principles. For a long time they collected information about a certain sect that worshiped the living embodiment of Dennitsa. They even had to pretend that they would like to join it. They said that it was risky, because the head of the sect can read thoughts. But so far everyone has been intact, which gave them a lot of courage.
Only Tonio doubted.
«What if its just heretics or is it easier swindlers? Suddenly they are not connected with her, and we will only spend time in vain?»
His claims almost did not hear.
«We will pretend that you also want to join their ranks,» said James. «You are both» He measured Tonio and Ferdinand with quick glance. «Fully fit, there welcome only young and beautiful. This is the sect of the devil. Physical beauty for them is in the first place. In addition to loyalty, this is the only criterion.»
«Loyalty?» Ferdinand frowned. He already gave his loyalty to God.
«Rather, obsession,» James suggested. «Everyone becomes some kind of crazy and cold as statues.»
Statues! The word caused unacceptable associations. They can not know how he belongs to the statues. More precisely, to only one of them. He did not tell anyone about it yet. And not going. It was his secret. No one should know it. His feeling to marble sculpture was too sacred.
Ferdinand reached for a dagger with a graceful gilded handle in the form of the dragon. Here is his new sacred relic. The dragon will be defeated, said Donatello, when he gave him the blade.
«Its too early to see the enemy territory,» Ferdinand concluded reasonably. «We are now vulnerable, not an enemy. We must wait.»
His argument was supposed to sound weighty. Now he takes the post of head, although temporarily, only until the evil is not destroyed by his hand. He had to feel strong, and all the orders brothers secretly obey him. However, James and Renault began to objected. Usually they behaved more restrained, but now they burned to rush into battle, track, destroy.
«We must at least look at,» meanwhile claimed Bob. «You need to know with what we are dealing with.»
«We know,» Ferdinand assured. «The evil will be destroyed.»
«But you can do it today.»
But the clock? Ferdinand again remembered it as a creature that laughed at him.
«Do you remember the residence of Cardinal Lisandro?»
The cardinal did not drink wine and did not go to the harlot, but for some reason he had a terribly negative reputation. It was all the case in his sermons. In his hints and open calls. Someone considered him a prophet.
The false prophet, so called him to himself Ferdinand. Many shared his opinion. But there were followers. A small society gathered around Lisandro. Order of communion! They tried to scare the devil with blood. Lily and blood are their symbols. Both were initially devilish symbols. But Lisandro held beautiful rites and assured that the Fallen Archangel Dennitsa is not so terrible as it seems. He stated even that he could call him and destroy. Obviously, today was the one night when he was going to take it.
Ferdinand would not put a penny on the fact that his intention would succeed. Not everything is as simple as it seems. Lisandro and his Order is really just heretics, blessed by Pope. It is unlikely that their prayers reach the ears of God, and the threats are afraid of the devil. Although it would be so easy to attach the fallen angel on lilies, which once in paradise were considered his flowers, blood, spilled like a bribe for him, and then kill. All weaklings dream of a simple decision of the question. Ferdinand knew that his path would be more complicated. He squeezed the handle of the dagger tightly.
True, now he had to prove himself that he had a determination.
«Not yet time» It was his last objection. But not already decisive.