The Catacombs of Muristan

The Muristan was alive with noise and color. There was the scent of cardamom and sandalwood drifting through the sun-drenched stalls, the sounds of merchants haggling in five languages, and the clatter of copper goods echoing against old stone. It was easy to lose yourself here. Easy to forget what slept beneath.

Jessica didn’t speak as she moved through the crowd, her eyes fixed ahead, hand brushing the edge of the disk tucked safely in her coat. Olivia trailed beside her, scanning the tiled awnings and crumbling arches. Leanna kept behind them, ever watchful, her body rigid with purpose.

They turned into a narrow side alley. It was quieter here. The shadows were deeper, and the walls older, stained with forgotten centuries. At the far end stood a small stone structure: a decaying chapel with a rusted gate. A faded plaque read:

“Church of St. John the Baptist — Founded 5th Century, rebuilt 11th.”

Shamir had told them this was the oldest surviving church in Jerusalem, and beneath it lied the ruins of the Hospitaller hospital.

The door creaked as Olivia pushed it open.

Inside, the chapel was sparse. Dust danced in the shafts of light falling through the latticework windows. At the far end stood a cracked mosaic of a lamb beneath a cross. But what caught Olivia’s attention was the floor. It was slightly uneven in one corner. The tile didn’t match.

Jessica stepped forward. The disk vibrated faintly in her coat.

Olivia knelt and began brushing away dust. “This panel was replaced. Recently. Too recently.”

Leanna crouched beside her and pried it up with a utility knife.

Beneath: a rusted iron grate.

A moment later, the three of them stood around the opening, staring into the darkness below.

Jessica descended first.

The ladder groaned with age but held. The air was cold and still, like the breath of something ancient. Her boots touched stone, and a vast chamber opened around her. The room was framed in arches and columns half-sunk into rubble, and walls slick with moss and carved with worn Latin inscriptions.

Olivia joined, her flashlight sweeping across a vaulted ceiling. “Cistern tunnels. Roman originally. Expanded by the Crusaders. This is where they stored water… and secrets.”

Leanna dropped beside them. “Let’s find what we came for.”

They moved cautiously through the catacombs. Fragments of statuary lay scattered in the dust—crosses, broken swords, a single knight’s helm embedded in the stone. Olivia stopped at a wall where an inscription curled like ivy: “Memoria ambulat donec redeat in pulverem.”

“The memory walks until it returns to dust,” she translated.

Jessica pressed her palm to the wall. It was warm.

They found the reliquary in a collapsed alcove. It was sealed in a lead box beneath a rotted wooden altar. Leanna pried it open.

Inside, wrapped in decaying linen, lay a rusted key that was identical in shape and weight to the one Jessica carried, but dulled by time, as though it had been waiting for her across centuries. Nestled beside it was a scrap of parchment, the ink faded but legible. A single name had been written with deliberate strokes: Aveline. Beneath the name, a hand-drawn Templar cross, nearly the same as the one etched into Jessica’s memories.

Beneath those, on the very bottom of the box, rested a carved stone tablet. Its surface was etched in both Latin and Hebrew, weathered yet defiant in the flickering light.

“She who bears the memory bears the weight of the world. But she is not the first.”

Jessica staggered backward.

“I’ve seen this before,” she whispered. “In my dreams. Aveline… she was one of them. One of us.”

Olivia looked up, her voice reverent. “This isn’t about Jason. It never was.”

Jessica nodded slowly. “I’m not the first vessel. I was just the one who made it this far.”

They stood in the darkness together, history pressed against them like stone. And somewhere, beneath their feet, the memory stirred.