Empire - Terra Umbra - Empire of Shadows

sealed the cavern and pitched camp, standing guard until all signs of life from within the
mountain had ceased. Then they saddled their horses and rode away leaving behind them a
rampart of stones that remained untouched for seven centuries.
Despite the emphasis placed on the Grail’s essentially spiritual nature, a reminder that it is
our sacred duty to strive towards perfection, there is a disturbing literalness to Rahn’s quest - a
methodical, perhaps typically German approach to the mystery.
After his attempts to buy land in Montsegur were thwarted he moved to the nearby valley of
Ussat-les-Bains to explore and excavate the caverns that honeycomb the surrounding mountains.
Inside La Grotte de Fontanet
Quite how Otto could afford to take over the lease on the hotel Des Marroniers is a matter of
considerable speculation. Although he wasn’t formally recruited into the SS until some two years
later Christian Bernadac insists that the young Grail historian was already receiving funds from
the coffers of the Black Order, possibly channeled to him either through Karl Wolf, Himmler’s
personal adjutant, or through the office of Gruppenführer Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich, who was to
become the commander of the feared Liebstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, General of the Waffen SS
and member of the Prussian State Council.
The name ‘Dietrich’ can also be used in German to describe a ‘skeleton key’, a double
entendre that Otto used several times in his published works, notably in the closing paragraphs of
‘The Court of Lucifer’ (1934):
...The sun has at last broken through the clouds. Its oblique rays make
everything shine and sparkle. Vapours rise from the steam. My little