Page 216 of The Secret of Secrets

Semper Fidelis, he thought as he closed his eyes to sleep.

In a backseat of the darkened cabin, The Golěm emerged from the shadows. Sasha was sound asleep, and The Golěm slipped quietly to the forefront of her mind, opening his eyes and gazing out the window. Beneath them, he saw only blackness…the great void that separated the Old World and the New.

America would be a fresh start for Sasha…as it had been for millions of people throughout history. A second chance. The Golěm finally felt confident that his dedication and love for Sasha would be rewarded. The universe helps those who understand it.

Even though The Golěm felt increasingly confident that Sasha would be safe in the ambassador’s care, he had no plans to leave Sasha entirely. Not yet. He would continue watching from the shadows, each day a bit farther back, less and less a part of her life, eventually just a quiet whisper in her mind. The thought felt melancholy somehow, and yet it also filled him with a sense of accomplishment.

The less she needs me, the more I have served her.

While The Golěm knew he had the power to leave Sasha entirely, to untether and return to the realm from which he had come, he sensed that a part of him would forever be with her…a guardian angel. He would manifest quietly in the ways so many angels appear…as an instinct, a hunch, a knowing…a helpful nudge from a more experienced soul, streaming in from another world.

Sasha will live the life she deserves.

Contented in his soul, The Golěm closed his eyes and gave himself permission to lose himself in the deepest slumber he’d enjoyed in a very long time.

“Spokoynoy nochi, milaya,” he whispered. Good night, sweetheart.

As he drifted off to sleep, his left hand reached out, by its own volition, and gently stroked the two Siamese cats purring on the seat beside him.

Chapter 139

Having finished her steep climb up Castle Hill, Katherine needed a moment to catch her breath and also to absorb the sheer scale of the structure before her. Prague Castle was not a castle at all…but rather a sprawling walled city.

This hilltop fortress, according to Robert, enclosed more than fifteen acres, including four palaces, two gathering halls, a prison, an armory, a presidential residence, a monastery, and five distinct churches, including one of the largest in the world…St. Vitus Cathedral.

Two nights ago, when Katherine had come here to give her lecture, she had been delivered by car and ushered into Vladislav Hall through a modest columned entrance on the south side of the complex. Probably so I wouldn’t be terrified, she concluded, eyeing the menacing gauntlet that now faced her at the main entrance.

Access to the castle was blocked by a colossal, five-story perimeter wall, which itself was shielded behind a towering spiked fence whose wrought-iron gate was guarded by two uniformed soldiers holding rifles. The only opening in the fence was flanked by two giant statues of muscular men in the process of spearing, stabbing, and bludgeoning lesser men.

Message received, Katherine thought.

She slipped through the gate and made her way through a maze of courtyards and tunnels before emerging into a sprawling cobblestone plaza. As she stepped into the open, her gaze turned immediately upward, climbing the facade of a building so large that she could scarcely believe it stood within the castle walls.

St. Vitus Cathedral.

All she knew about this cathedral was that Langdon considered it an architectural masterpiece. His favorite feature was a hundred-meter bell tower that housed one of Europe’s largest bells—a seventeen-ton behemoth named Zikmund—which apparently rang so loudly that it was struck only on Christmas and Easter for fear its reverberations might damage the ancient tower.

Katherine took a few moments to gaze up at the massive bell tower before heading for the entrance, eager to locate the famous door that, according to a guard she had just asked, lay within the cathedral.

The door with the seven locks. She still had no idea what it was, but she hoped to find Langdon waiting there already. Her walk up the hill had taken far longer than expected, and Langdon had taken a cab, so with luck his paperwork had been sorted out quickly.

The interior of St. Vitus Cathedral was precisely as Katherine expected—cavernous, opulent, and imposing—just like every other European cathedral she’d ever visited. She remained perplexed that humans had toiled for centuries to construct these shrines to an all-powerful, benevolent God…during an era when plagues, wars, and famine were killing the faithful by the millions. She wondered if their God was either indifferent to human suffering…or powerless to stop it. Even so, it seemed obvious that the promise of “eternal life” was an irresistible balm that soothed the universal fear of death.

And remains so today, she thought as she moved deeper into the church, scanning for Langdon. St. Vitus was nearly deserted at this hour, and when she asked the lone docent about the mysterious door, he pointed up the nave’s central aisle to an arched opening on the right, just off the center of the sanctuary.

“Wenceslas Chapel,” he whispered.

The empty chapel turned out to be a breathtakingly beautiful chamber with a gray marble floor and elaborately frescoed walls that climbed several stories to a vaulted ceiling. In the center of the chapel stood an enormous rectangular box of multiple tiers, all inlaid with colorful gems and topped by a peaked canopy. It was so unusual that Katherine had to read the sign before she realized what she was looking at.

A royal sarcophagus.

This box, as it turned out, entombed a famous “king” who was never actually king, but rather a good-hearted prince mistakenly immortalized as a king in a popular English Christmas carol. Katherine was pleased to read that the resting place of Good King Wenceslas also served as the gateway to the priceless Bohemian Crown Jewels…secured in a vault accessible only through a famous door with seven locks.

Katherine hurried over to the door, which stood in the corner. It was an imposing slab of gray metal, crisscrossed with interlaced reinforcing bands riveted into place on the diagonals. The resulting diamond pattern was embellished with rampant lions and eagles, both symbols from the Czech coat of arms. Running vertically down the left-hand side of the door was a series of ornate keyholes. Katherine was not surprised to count seven of them, each surrounded by armored plating.

She glanced over her shoulder at the empty chapel and then, feeling foolish, tried the door.

Locked.