The Origin of the Watchers

Prologue

 

Jerusalem slept uneasily beneath the silver gaze of the moon. In the tangled streets above, dogs barked and merchants snored, but below, in the labyrinth beneath the Temple Mount, the air throbbed with old secrets. Each footfall on ancient stone echoed like a question.

Sir Guy de Varenne pressed deeper into the gloom, torchlight trembling in his fist. Sweat ran cold beneath his mail despite the desert heat—he was a knight, yes, but he was also a scholar, and he knew when the darkness was watching back. The tunnels pressed in, alive with the scent of dust, incense, and the faintest hint of myrrh, older than any altar.

He paused at a curious seam in the wall—a perfect spiral, etched so finely it might have been made by the first sunrise. Guy’s heart beat in answer, a rhythm almost musical. He knelt, fingers trembling, tracing the spiral’s path. He felt—rather than heard—a pulse behind the stone, as if the city itself were holding its breath.

He remembered the Sufi’s words: “It will open to the right heart, not the right key.” Guy had laughed then, but here, beneath two thousand years of prayer and blood, he dared a whispered phrase from his dreams, a syllable that felt both foreign and familiar. The spiral shimmered in the torchlight.

Stone shifted—silently, impossibly. Warm air spilled from the new opening, tinged with the scent of cedar and lightning. Guy drew a shaky breath, crossed himself, and entered.

Inside, the chamber was nothing like the rough-hewn crypts of the Templars. The walls shimmered, every surface carved with symbols that seemed to shift when he blinked—spirals, star-maps, languages he did not know yet almost understood. At the center stood a black stone obelisk, smooth as glass, humming just beyond hearing.

Guy stepped forward, drawn by awe and a gravity deeper than any vow. He pressed his palm to the stone.

The world fell away.

He was tumbling, not through space but through memory. Cities rose and fell in a thousand heartbeats: towers crowned with light, empires lost to sand, voices singing beneath ancient oceans. He saw giant shapes in golden armor—Givers, Annunaki—binding men in chains of light and law. Then, through it all, moved a silent figure robed in radiance, sowing the earth with seeds of song, tending and vanishing, returning at every turning of the age. The being never spoke, but its presence stilled the chaos. Guy sensed its name but could not grasp it—only the impression of “the Caretaker,” the Watcher behind all watchers.

The vision ended in a shock of cold stone. Guy staggered, gasping, as the chamber’s hum faded to a living hush. Torchlight flickered across the glyphs, and for an instant, he imagined they watched him in return.

He pressed a trembling hand to his chest. Something had entered him, or perhaps awakened within—a resonance that would never leave him.

In that moment, beneath the ancient city, Sir Guy de Varenne understood: some secrets are not meant for kings or popes, but for those willing to watch, to wait, and to listen for the song beneath the silence.

Above, Jerusalem dreamed on, never knowing the field had shifted, or that a new kind of guardian now walked its shadowed halls.

Part 1: Knights and Shadows

 

Jerusalem at dawn was a city of hush and heat, holy songs drifting from minarets, crows calling from the domes. The alleys glistened from last night’s dew; everywhere, light crept through dust, gilding stone. But beneath the beauty lay a tension—every prayer, every rumor, every guarded glance a reminder that peace was as fragile as spun glass.

Sir Guy de Varenne emerged from the tunnels, cloak dusted with limestone and the scent of secrets clinging to his hair. He paused in a shadowed courtyard to let the world settle, his heart still echoing with that subterranean vision. In his mind, the Caretaker’s radiance lingered like an afterimage on water.

A soft cough drew his attention. Brother Thomas waited in the colonnade, hood drawn, hands folded around a battered codex. Thomas was younger, yet care had carved lines at the corners of his eyes—an earnest scribe, his faith as sharp as his curiosity.

“You were gone all night, Guy. Again.” Thomas’s voice was quiet, but there was urgency beneath it. “If Michel’s men see you skulking out of the crypts, it will be more than penance this time.”

Guy managed a faint smile, but the weight of what he’d seen pressed heavy on his tongue. “I found something, Thomas. Something… ancient. More ancient than Solomon. The glyphs, the stone—they aren’t Hebrew, not Greek, not even Latin. Older. And the air in there—” He trailed off, unable to find words.

Thomas’s fingers tightened on his book. “Are you certain you haven’t simply been breathing too much dust? There are rumors, Guy. Strange lights, odd sounds. Michel is already on edge, talking of heresy and witchcraft.”

Guy shook his head. “You know I’m no heretic, Thomas. But there’s a pattern—something beneath the city, a memory or a presence. It sings.”

They moved together, steps echoing along the worn flagstones, past the courtyard’s gnarled olive tree. The Templar compound was already stirring: knights in battered surcoats, servants fetching water, a handful of priests whispering in Latin. Over all, a sense of unease.

They passed a cluster of knights arguing quietly near the well, voices tense. Michel’s name came up more than once. Guy caught the words “miracles,” “omens,” and “treason,” all spat with equal venom.

As they ducked into the shade of the scriptorium, Thomas lowered his voice. “If Michel finds out you’re in the crypts, he’ll report you. He thinks any wisdom not written in the Rule is sorcery. We’re not all here for relics and gold, Guy—but you know the order’s growing desperate.”

Guy nodded. “Desperate men see devils in every shadow.”

He unrolled his notes on the scriptorium table, sketches of the spiral glyph, the obelisk, and the shifting star-maps. Thomas examined them with a scholar’s eye, brow furrowing as he traced the unfamiliar shapes. “This one looks almost like a cuneiform sigil, but… off. And this—didn’t we see something similar in that Egyptian codex?”

Before Guy could answer, a voice interrupted—a soft, accented baritone, more music than speech.

“It is not Egyptian. Nor is it Sumerian. But it remembers both.”

They turned. Yusef al-Kharran, the Sufi mystic and sometime guide, stood in the doorway, turban gleaming in the slanting sun. His smile was kind, but his eyes held the calm of desert nights.

Yusef stepped into the cool, lamp-lit room, his hands clasped. “You seek the oldest song, Sir Guy. I warned you, it is not found in books, but in the space between. In the silence before the word.”

Thomas looked uneasy, but Guy welcomed the intervention. “Come see these for yourself, Yusef. You know the stories better than any priest.”

Yusef examined the sketches, fingers hovering just above the parchment, as if feeling for a current beneath the ink. “These… these are not human invention, though men have copied them for centuries. Some say the Annunaki—Givers, sky-kings—carried such marks. But there are other legends, older still. Of the Silent Ones, who sowed the field but never ruled it. They shaped with intention and tone. No swords, no crowns. Only song.”

Guy’s pulse quickened. “What does it mean, then? These marks, the stone—what are they?”

Yusef smiled, a glint of mischief in his gaze. “It means Jerusalem is older than memory. It means you are walking the border between creation and control. The question, Sir Guy, is which song you choose to follow.”

A bell tolled in the distant chapel, summoning the faithful to prayer. Guy looked at his companions—Thomas, torn between loyalty and fear; Yusef, a foreigner who read meaning in silence. Outside, the city began to pulse with life, unaware that beneath its stones, something ancient was stirring.

For Guy, there would be no more peace. Only questions—haunting, shimmering, and alive as the dawn itself.

Part 2: The Harmonic Experiment

 

Night returned quickly in Jerusalem, drawing deep shadows through the alleys and archways. After the last call to prayer faded, the city became a hush of watchful windows and distant, drifting smoke. In the scriptorium, Sir Guy de Varenne leaned over his sketches, tracing spirals with ink-stained fingers as the oil lamp guttered low. The song from the chamber still echoed in his mind, as if a new sense had been awakened.

Thomas sat across from him, worry etched into the set of his jaw. He dabbed salve onto a wound on his palm—a knife cut, old and slow to heal, an irritation from the tunnels. Yusef, as always, observed quietly, eyes half-closed, lips moving in silent remembrance.

At last Yusef spoke, voice low as if not to disturb the dust. “You felt it, both of you. The chamber hums because it is alive, in a way. Not as men are alive, but as song is alive. In your own church, do they not speak of ‘the Word that was at the beginning’?”

Thomas looked up, uncertain. “Words are not stones. Words do not make wounds heal.”

Yusef only smiled. “When the word is rightly spoken, it does far more than that.”

Guy’s hand shook as he unrolled a rough plan of the chamber’s floor—concentric spirals, angular star-shapes, and an altar at the center where the black stone stood. “The markings feel purposeful. Like a kind of map… or a script meant to be read aloud. I can’t shake the feeling there’s a pattern to how we move in there, as much as what we say.”

Thomas hesitated, eyes flicking between his friends and the dark corridor beyond. “If we are caught—”

“We won’t be,” Guy interrupted. “Tonight, everyone’s at the barracks for Michel’s address. It’s our chance.” He met Thomas’s gaze. “If you’d rather not—”

But Thomas was already rising, wrapping his bandaged hand in a rag. “I am a scribe. Scribes go where words call them.”

They crept through the silent cloisters, the city’s distant noises muffled by heavy stones. At the threshold to the hidden stair, Guy paused. “Say the word you taught me, Yusef.”

Yusef obliged. The syllables were not Arabic, not Latin—older, gentler. The stone seemed to yield, the air softening around them, a sensation not unlike entering holy ground. The spiral seam shimmered, and the chamber yawned open.

Inside, the walls glowed faintly with their own pale fire. The glyphs shimmered with each footfall, as if recognizing the return of seekers.

The three formed a loose triangle, standing at the points marked by stars in the mosaic floor. The central obelisk—black and humming, silent but alive—waited.

Yusef bowed his head. “We will not command, but ask.”

He began a slow, wordless chant—a rising hum that swelled and fell, echoing the rhythm of heart and breath. Thomas, uncertain at first, traced the star-shapes in the sand with his foot, his movements instinctive, almost dance like.

Guy felt a vibration in his bones, a note in the marrow. Without thinking, he intoned the syllable that had come to him in his vision—a sound that was both name and invitation.

The air changed. The glow intensified, soft gold and blue. A low resonance pulsed from the stone, not loud, but felt—like standing in the nave of a great cathedral as the choir sings.

Thomas gasped, stumbling. The pain in his hand, constant for weeks, was gone—he flexed his fingers, finding them whole and strong. Yusef looked up, tears in his eyes, and whispered, “Thank you, old friend,” to the empty chamber.

For a breathless moment, the three felt each other’s thoughts—memories, worries, flashes of old joy—rippling between them like a gentle tide. It was more than words, but less than mind-reading: the deep intuition of true harmony.

Time, too, seemed to loosen its grip. The lamp’s flame flickered backward, then forward, shadows stretching and collapsing. For a moment, Guy felt himself standing in sunlight, heard distant voices in forgotten tongues—a city’s memory humming through stone.

The moment fractured.

Thomas, eager and unsettled, tried to repeat the syllable—his voice sharp, the intention desperate rather than harmonious. The chamber recoiled. The glow sputtered, the resonance twisting into a grating disharmony. Guy felt a sudden pressure in his skull, a warning.

“Stop!” Yusef barked, and silence crashed down.

The air stilled. The walls seemed to sigh, and the glow faded to a weary shimmer.

They stood, breathing hard, sweat beading on their brows. Yusef broke the hush. “Creation responds to care, not command. The Givers, the Annunaki, tried to bind with force—this is why they fell. But the ones before—the Silent Ones—they knew the song was a living thing.”

Thomas fell to his knees, shaking. “I… I felt everything. For a moment, I understood—” He swallowed, unable to finish.

Guy knelt beside him, placing a steadying hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right. We are not meant to master this. Only to listen.”

Yusef’s eyes found them both in the dimness. “The wise become watchers, not rulers.”

As the three left the chamber, Guy carried with him a new humility—and a deeper, more dangerous curiosity. He knew now what the glyphs could do, but he also sensed the boundary they must not cross.

Above, Jerusalem’s night pressed down, and the first whispers of danger moved through the order’s sleeping halls.

Part 3: Echoes of Power

 

Jerusalem’s days grew hotter, the very air shimmering above rooftops. In the Templar compound, tension thickened with every dawn. Word spread of strange happenings—voices heard in empty corridors, shadows that moved without men, and the persistent rumor of a secret chamber that only opened to the faithful… or the damned.

Brother Michel stalked the cloisters, his suspicion a blade looking for a throat. He questioned servants, watched for signs of heresy. Men whispered that he prayed harder than he slept, that he wrote lists of names each night—names of those who might lead the order astray.

For Guy, every hour brought new unrest. The harmonics of the chamber haunted him. Even in the sunlight, he could sense the residue of that song—felt as a tremor in a friend’s laugh, a tingle at the edge of spoken prayers, a shiver in the silence after a bell. Sometimes, when the world grew quiet, he swore he heard the glyphs humming beneath the city, as if Jerusalem itself awaited a forgotten refrain.

In the scriptorium, Thomas wrote restlessly, scratching ink across the page with a hand now fully healed. At times, his pen would drift, unconsciously sketching spirals and stars between the lines of copied scripture. Guy saw the marks and said nothing, but they both knew the chamber had changed them.

One afternoon, as Guy pored over his notes, Yusef entered, eyes clouded. He carried a tattered scroll, its seals broken, its language ancient even to him.

“I have found something,” Yusef said quietly. “A record from Babel, they say. It tells of those who fell from the sky, and those who walked among men, not as rulers, but as shepherds. It says there is always a moment, a crossroads, when the world must choose—control, or freedom. The Annunaki, the Givers, imposed their song by force. But always, at the darkest hour, a silent one returns. Not to rule, but to tend. The Caretaker.”

Guy’s breath caught. In his mind, the vision from the chamber replayed—a radiant figure weaving light through chaos, returning again and again, never claiming a throne, always vanishing before the feast.

He shook himself from the memory. “Why do you bring this now?”

Yusef’s smile was somber. “Because Michel is closing in. He has called a council tonight. He means to expose us, or worse. You must decide, Guy—do we flee, or do we guard what we have found?”

Thomas looked up from his writing, fear naked on his face. “We cannot flee. If we run, Michel will claim the chamber for himself. He will force it open—or destroy it trying.”

Guy closed his eyes. For a moment, he listened—to his own heartbeat, to the rhythm of the old city, to a resonance just beyond hearing. A phrase surfaced in his mind, a remnant from the vision:

Guard the field. The Caretaker returns at the crossroads, not to rule, but to tend the soil of consciousness. Watch.

He opened his eyes, resolve setting in. “We do not run. We protect the chamber—and its song. If that means standing against Michel, then so be it.”

The bell tolled for vespers, the note trembling with a dissonance Guy could feel in his bones. Outside, the courtyard filled with knights assembling for council. Michel’s voice rose above the crowd, sharp and righteous.

“Tonight,” he proclaimed, “we will root out all falsehood. Jerusalem must be purified of secrets and sorcery!”

Guy met the gazes of Thomas and Yusef. “Whatever happens, we stand together.”

As night gathered, the three men prepared for confrontation. Guy slipped the parchment of glyphs into his cloak, feeling the stone’s resonance through the thin fabric. Thomas tucked a shard of the chamber’s mosaic into his sleeve—a talisman, or a hope. Yusef whispered a prayer, his words carrying the cadence of ancient winds.

In the echoing corridors, power and peril entwined. The field was shifting; the watchers were being called.

Part 4: The Schism

 

The council convened in the long refectory, stone walls aglow with candlelight. Knights clustered at rough-hewn tables, eyes sharp with suspicion. Brother Michel stood at the head, hands clasped behind his back, his shadow stretched tall against the tapestries.

Guy entered flanked by Thomas and Yusef, the weight of destiny pressing on his shoulders. He kept his eyes down, but his mind rang with the memory of harmonics—like a bell struck in secret, still resonating in his bones.

Michel’s voice cut through the hush. “Brothers! We are the sword and shield of Christendom. Yet some among us would traffic in sorcery and secrets. These men”—he gestured at Guy and his companions—“have crept beneath sacred ground, seeking what should not be sought.”

Murmurs rose, some fearful, some eager. A few knights crossed themselves. Others watched Guy with hope, remembering rumors of miraculous healing and whispered prophecy.

Guy stepped forward. “What we have found is not sorcery, nor is it a weapon to be wielded in war. It is a memory, a song beneath stone, older than any crown. It must be guarded, not used.”

Michel sneered. “Guarded? You mean hidden—from your brothers, from the Church, from the world? You would have us bow to a power we do not understand.”

Yusef met Michel’s gaze, steady and calm. “To wield what you do not understand is to invite ruin. The old stories say so—ask Babel, ask Egypt, ask any city buried by its own pride.”

Michel’s patience snapped. “Blasphemy! I will see this so-called chamber opened by sunrise. If you will not reveal its secrets, you will be judged as heretics.”

A fist crashed onto a table; tempers flared. Some knights drew swords half an inch from scabbards. The air crackled with threat, and the field felt taut as a drawn bowstring.

Thomas rose, voice trembling but clear. “The chamber will yield only to harmony, not to force. Try and you will shatter more than stone.”

Michel signaled two men—loyal brutes, armored and grim. “Take them. We’ll see if they speak differently under the lash.”

Before the guards could act, Guy reached into his cloak, producing the parchment inscribed with glyphs. He spoke a phrase in the old tongue—quiet, but filled with the memory of the chamber’s resonance. The candles flickered, and a low tone rolled through the hall, felt rather than heard.

The men staggered, dropping their weapons, hands flying to their ears. For a heartbeat, every voice stilled, and a sense of awe—bordering on fear—fell upon the assembly.

Guy turned to Michel. “You seek power, but power is not what is guarded here. It is balance. The field remembers, even if you do not.”

Michel paled but rallied. “Witchcraft! Subtle tricks! This ends now.”

He stormed from the room, knights trailing. The council dissolved in confusion—some men fearful, others whispering of prophecy, still others watching Guy and his friends with new, uneasy respect.

Outside, the city was silent, save for distant bells. Guy, Thomas, and Yusef hurried to the hidden stair, knowing time was short.

They reached the chamber beneath the Temple. The air inside felt different—tense, as if the stones themselves were listening.

Yusef spoke quietly. “If Michel comes with force, he will destroy everything. We must seal this place.”

Thomas nodded. “Let it be hidden, as it was meant to be. Let it wait for those who hear the song.”

Guy placed his palm on the obelisk, intoning the phrase from his vision. Thomas traced the spiral on the floor; Yusef sang a note that vibrated through the bones of the earth.

The chamber responded: the glyphs shimmered, the spiral brightened, and the resonance rose—not a shout, but a weaving of many hearts and intentions. The entrance contracted, stone folding over stone until only darkness and the faintest echo remained.

In the hush, Guy felt a gentle, approving presence—neither word nor image, only a knowing. The Caretaker, watching.

They left the sealed chamber, hearts pounding. Above, the night seemed to draw in close, waiting for a new kind of dawn.

The schism was complete. Michel would come, but find nothing. He would report to his superiors, but that won't matter now, since there could be no return to what they now were.

From this night forward, they were no longer simply knights, scribes, or wanderers. They were Watchers—chosen not to wield power, but to guard the harmony that made all power possible.

Part 5: The Oath of the Watchers

 

The city was hushed and trembling before dawn, as if Jerusalem itself were holding its breath. In the winding alleys above, the world awaited the rising sun. But deep beneath the stones, a new brotherhood gathered around the sealed chamber, candles flickering in cupped hands, eyes bright with resolve and sorrow.

Sir Guy de Varenne stood at the head of the circle, flanked by Thomas the scribe and Yusef al-Kharran. Two others, chosen for their quiet strength and loyalty, joined them—Brother Andre, whose prayers always ended in silence, and Miriam, a healer whose touch soothed both wound and spirit.

They spoke little as they worked, their actions precise and reverent. Thomas inscribed the spiral-eye sigil in charcoal at the foot of the closed entrance. Yusef placed a fragment of the mosaic at the center of the spiral, singing a single, wordless note that hung in the air long after his breath had faded.

Guy passed around five small shards of the resonant black stone, each warm with a gentle pulse. “A part of the song,” he whispered, “to keep us bound in memory, and to remind us that we are never to use this for ourselves.”

One by one, they pressed the shards to their hearts, feeling the faint vibration—like the echo of a promise that stretched forward through centuries.

Candles guttered as Guy began the vow, his voice strong but soft, the words chosen as much for their intention as their meaning:

“We are the Watchers in the shadow of memory.

We attend the field for the coming of the Gardener,

And stand between humanity and the Givers’ chains.

We act only when the balance tips,

For the song of creation is not ours to command.”

Each repeated the words in turn, their voices weaving together. The chamber, sealed and sleeping behind them, seemed to resonate with the vow—a living witness to their choice.

Miriam, her eyes shining with tears, added her own line: “Let us be keepers of the quiet, never the storm. Let our silence protect what words cannot.”

They stood a moment longer, hands joined, the shards cool and bright in their palms. In the silence, each felt the presence of something vast and kind—a watching that was not judgment, but hope.

Guy closed the circle, pressing his shard into a leather pouch around his neck. “We will fade into the world above. No one will know us for what we are. But we will watch. When the song returns, or the Givers stir, we will be ready.”

As dawn touched the rim of the city, they extinguished their candles and climbed into the morning. The city was unchanged, save for a new possibility sleeping beneath its stones.

Above, bells began to toll, calling the faithful to prayer. Among the throng of knights and pilgrims, five figures melted into the crowd—no longer merely Templars, healers, or scribes, but the first of a secret order sworn to the quiet art of vigilance.

Deep below, the chamber rested, sealed in light and memory, waiting for the day when harmony or chaos would call the Watchers once more.

Epilogue

 

Years passed, and the city changed as it always did—rulers came and went, walls rose and fell, faiths clashed and mingled in the dust. The Templar Order, once mighty, was shattered and scattered by decree and envy. But beneath the surface, the vow endured.

Sir Guy de Varenne aged in the hills outside Jerusalem, living quietly as a scholar and physician. He rarely spoke of his former life. Yet sometimes, in the hush before dawn, he would hold the shard of black stone and feel its silent hum—like a heartbeat that was not his own. He taught the children of the village how to listen for the pulse beneath a bird’s song, how to sense the “shape” of a moment before words gave it form. “There is always a harmony beneath the noise,” he would say, “if you are still enough to find it.”

Thomas the scribe vanished into legend, some said to Rome, others to the monasteries of the Pyrenees. In truth, he left behind a book, carefully encoded, hidden within the library of a quiet abbey. In its margins were spirals and stars, and between its lines, a music waiting for those who could read with the heart as well as the eye.

Yusef al-Kharran returned to Cairo, founding a small school of geometry and healing on the edge of the desert. His students learned not only to draw circles, but to sense their resonance, to seek wisdom in silence. Yusef was last seen as an old man, watching a sandstorm approach, his shard of stone glowing faintly in his palm, the desert wind singing through the gates.

Miriam and Andre traveled north, sometimes together, sometimes apart. Miriam’s name would surface centuries later in the stories of wise women and healers across Anatolia, her medicine always accompanied by a spiral drawn in ash or honey. Andre became a wanderer, turning up in distant courts and battlefields, always vanishing when questions grew too direct.

The world forgot the Watchers’ names, as it forgets all names. Yet in quiet places—a secret sigil on a stone, a phrase that calms an angry crowd, a healer’s gentle touch—their vow echoed onward. The chamber beneath Jerusalem remained hidden, its resonance sleeping, waiting for those who would seek it with the right heart and the right song.

Once, in his final days, Guy dreamt of a field beyond time, golden and endless. A silent figure moved among the wildflowers, hands folded behind his back, tending the earth. Guy tried to call out, but the figure only smiled and vanished in the light. When Guy awoke, he wept—not from sorrow, but from the joy of remembering that some songs never truly end.

Centuries later, far from Jerusalem, a teacher in a forgotten schoolroom would feel a faint vibration from an ancient shard, just as a new age trembled on the edge of awakening.

And so the Watchers endured—not as rulers, not as martyrs, but as keepers of the quiet field, waiting, always, for the harmony to return.