Chapter 21

Part eighteen?
The morning had come and we needed to move, time wasn't an acquaintance at this point and we needed every bit of it properly utilized.
Asmodeus had opened a vortex we were in no time at Jacob's, all gathered around a table with the Lance the only thing on the table.
Asmodeus still looking afraid and keeping a reasonable distance from the Lance, Mara and Jacob, gathered tools to begin the process while I stood there looking wondering what to do not to look useless, but Mara and Jacob asked me to stand back and give them room to work.
On the table, where the items to check the authenticity of the Lance, included;
A crucifix, a Bible, a metal moon, a pentagram, a metal star, the blood of a lamb, a dove, a knife, some spell books and a map.
Three spell books already spread and Jacob and Mara reciting a spell together, hands held, then the Lance was dipped in the blood of the lamb, rubbed on the body of the dove and then placed on the map still calling out the spell.
Then a whirlwind lifted the Lance above the map and started spinning the Lance in a spot, suddenly then the knife, the pentagram, the moon, the star and the crucifix all surrounded the Lance and the blood from the Lance started creating a pattern on the map snd when the blood trails on the map stopped the dove combusted and died.
"What just happened," I asked.
"Jacob, talk to us," Asmodeus said.
"Okay the Lance is a part of a whole and other pieces have to come together to create anything worthy of a demon killer," Jacob said.
"So it's not original?" I asked
"It has holy powers cause the cross rose, but I also could pass as a Muslim and occultic relic, cause the moon, star and pentagram rose too, and I was a weapon of war, cause it has been passed down from one Warlord to another, but we can't say, we have to look for the other pieces, follow the pattern on the map," Mara said.
"So why did the dove die?" I asked
"It was a sacrifice for the process, it served its purpose," Jacob said
Mara picked up the map and said
"According to the map, we have to find the remaining pieces of the Lance and a relic described as the Holy Lance in Rome is preserved beneath the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica, although the Catholic Church does not claim its authenticity. The first historical reference to a lance was made in AD 570 by an unknown pilgrim from Piacenza (often erroneously identified with St. Antoninus of Piacenza) in his descriptions of the holy places of Jerusalem, writing that he saw in the Basilica of Mount Zion "the crown of thorns with which Our Lord was crowned and the lance with which He was struck in the side" although there is uncertainty about the exact site to which he refers.
A lance is mentioned in the so-called Breviarius at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The alleged presence in Jerusalem of the relic is attested by Cassiodorus as well as by Gregory of Tours. who had not actually been to Jerusalem.
In 615, Jerusalem was captured by the Persian forces of King Khosrau II (Chosroes II). According to the Chronicon Paschale, the point of the lance, which had been broken off, was given in the same year to Nicetas, who took it to Constantinople and deposited it in the church of Hagia Sophia and later in the Church of the Virgin of the Pharos. This point of the lance, which was now set in an icon, was acquired by the Latin Emperor Baldwin II of Constantinople, who later sold it to Louis IX of France. The point of the lance was then enshrined with the crown of thorns in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. During the French Revolution, these relics were removed to the Bibliothèque Nationale but the point subsequently disappeared.
As for the larger portion of the lance, Arculpus claimed he saw it at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre around 670 in Jerusalem, but there is otherwise no mention of it after the sack in 615. Some claim that the larger relic had been conveyed to Constantinople in the 8th century, possibly at the same time as the Crown of Thorns. At any rate, its presence at Constantinople seems to be clearly attested by various pilgrims, particularly Russians, and, though it was deposited in various churches in succession, it seems possible to trace it and distinguish it from the relic of the point. Sir John Mandeville declared in 1357 that he had seen the blade of the Holy Lance both at Paris and at Constantinople and that the latter was a much larger relic than the former; it is worth adding that Mandeville is not generally regarded as one of the Middle Ages' most reliable witnesses, and his supposed travels are usually treated as an eclectic amalgam of myths, legends and other fictions. "The lance which pierced Our Lord's side" was among the relics at Constantinople shown in the 1430s to Pedro Tafur, who added, "God grant that in the overthrow of the Greeks they have not fallen into the hands of the enemies of the Faith, for they will have been ill-treated and handled with little reverence."
Whatever the Constantinople relic was, it did fall into the hands of the Turks, and in 1492, under circumstances minutely described in Pastor's History of the Popes, the Sultan Bayezid II sent it to Pope Innocent VIII to encourage the pope to continue to keep his brother and rival Zizim (Cem Sultan) prisoner. At this time great doubts as to its authenticity were felt in Rome, as Johann Burchard records,[9] because of the presence of other rival lances in Paris (the point that had been separated from the lance), Nuremberg (see Holy Lance in Vienna below), and Armenia (see Holy Lance in Echmiadzin below). In the mid-18th century, Pope Benedict XIV states that he obtained from Paris an exact drawing of the point of the lance and that in comparing it with the larger relic in St. Peter's he was satisfied that the two had originally formed one blade.[10] This relic has never since left Rome, and its resting place is at Saint Peter's".
She walked up to the fridge at the corner of the room took out a bottle of root beer, drank some of it and continued.
"A Holy Lance is conserved in Vagharshapat (previously known as Echmiadzin), the religious capital of Armenia. It was previously held in the monastery of Geghard. The first source that mentions it is the text Holy Relics of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in a thirteenth-century Armenian manuscript. According to this text, the spear which pierced Jesus was to have been brought to Armenia by the Apostle Thaddeus. The manuscript does not specify precisely where it was kept, but the Holy Lance gives a description that exactly matches the lance, the monastery gate, since the thirteenth century precisely, the name of Geghardavank (Monastery of the Holy Lance).
In 1655, the French traveller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was the first Westerner to see this relic in Armenia. In 1805, the Russians captured the monastery and the relic was moved to Tchitchanov Geghard, Tbilisi, Georgia. It was later returned to Armenia and is still on display at the Manoogian museum in Vagharshapat, enshrined in a 17th-century reliquary.
During the June 1098 Siege of Antioch, a monk named Peter Bartholomew reported that he had a vision in which St. Andrew told him that the Holy Lance was buried in the Church of St. Peter in Antioch. After much digging in the cathedral, Bartholomew allegedly discovered a lance. Despite the doubts of many, including the papal legate Adhemar of Le Puy, the discovery of the Holy Lance of Antioch inspired the starving Crusaders to break the siege and secure the city.
In the 18th century, Roman cardinal Prospero Lambertini claimed the Antiochian lance was a fake.
Another lance has been preserved at Kraków, Poland, since at least the 13th century."
"How come you are so knowledgeable, you read about all of it, or mediums have the gift of history at their fingertips?" I asked.
Mara smiled and replied " I read about it, but I was there through most of it"
"How old are you?" I was curious
"Jacob is older and we are just nine years apart" Mara replied
" You are four thousand eight hundred and sixty?" I sounded shocked
" You and right" she smiled again.
" So what next" I turned to face Asmodeus
" We rest and then find the remaining parts as soon as possible" Asmodeus replied.