by D B Nielsen
Bewildered, I asked, ‘So there may have been more than three Magi?’
‘There may have been many more or perhaps less than three. No one knows for sure,’ he confirmed, ‘but the legend suggests that they descended from Noah – though, of course, this is only conjecture. Historians, however, speculate that the Magi probably crossed the Syrian Desert, lying between the Euphrates and Syria, and reached either Haleb or Tudmor, journeying on to Damascus and southward by what is now the great Mecca route known as “The Pilgrim’s Way”. We have no evidence of the precise land meant by “the East”. According to St. Maximus and Theodotus of Ancyra, it’s Babylon; according to both Clement and St. Cyril of Alexandria, it’s Persia; and according to St. Justin, Tertullian, and St. Epiphanius, it’s Arabia.’
‘That’s a lot of confusion,’ I stated, briefly looking out the window of the plane at my last view of Rome as we began to ascend.
St. John sighed. ‘Look, the idea that there were three Magi probably came from the fact that they bore three gifts. But the word “Magi” comes from the Greek word, “Magoi”.’
‘Magician,’ I translated.
‘Yes or, in this case, more accurately translated as Wise Men.’
I stared unseeing out a window full of sky and frothy, floating clouds. ‘So, it all keeps coming back to ancient Babylon and the Wise Ones then.’
St. John mumbled something that might have been an affirmative but I could tell from the angle of his head and the purple bruises beneath his eyes that lent him a greater humanity in an all too flawless face that he was already beginning to doze. He crossed his arms over his chest and reclined in the leather seat, immobile as any sculpture of antiquity.
I was able then to study his features at length from the darker shadow at his jaw – from the look of it, he hadn’t shaved in days – to the polished brass curls that lay in artful disarray around his ears and curled into the collar of his leather jacket. He looked younger in repose than when I’d first met him and definitely more vulnerable without his air of academic authority. It made me feel fiercely protective of him and I went in search of the flight attendant in order to retrieve a blanket to cover him as he slept.
It was a short flight back to Paris; under two hours, with St. John showing every sign of remaining asleep the length of the journey. As I was also unable to sleep, being too keyed up, I moved across the aisle to the opposite seats, away from St. John so as not to disturb his slumber and, requesting a fresh pot of tea be brought, rummaged in his duffle bag for something to keep me occupied as I knew I wouldn’t be able to settle to watch an on-air flight. I found a leather notepad wallet and hoped that it contained paper and pen so that I could organise some of the thoughts bouncing around in my head.
Wondering where to begin, I idly doodled on the notepad as the flight attendant returned with the silver tea service, setting it beside the notepad on the fold-out table. I noticed that as the stewardess poured the tea into a fine bone China cup she kept giving admiring glances under her lashes to St. John as he slept on unknowingly. I felt an almost irrational urge to poke her with the pen in my hand and realised how jealous I was feeling. Jealous and possessive.
I was thinking some very unkind thoughts about her rather too-obvious sensual good-looks in the style of Monica Bellucci, the Italian actress and model, and gave a rather loud snort.
She must have heard it because she straightened up immediately and, shooting me a rather condescending look, politely asked if I required anything else. In turn, I gave her a tight smile and shook my head.
All of my emotions seemed to burn within me – fear, jealousy, love, hate, the desire to protect – and I was afraid of what I might say to her in my unstable mood. I was keeping a tight rein on my control which was hanging by a gossamer thread. Naturally, I dismissed her, grateful when she left the cabin and closed the curtain to the galley behind her as she exited.
My emotions erratic and my thoughts in disordered turmoil, I looked down at the pen wrapped tightly in my hand, my fingers stiff and my knuckles bone-white, intending to release the pen from my unnatural grip. But I sucked in a laboured breath when I noticed that beneath the ballpoint’s tip were a series of symbols I’d unconsciously doodled onto the pad, so heavy the impression made by my hand that I’d managed to tear the paper in places with the pen’s point. I took several more breaths to steady my already frayed nerves and continued to stare down at the symbols all but carved into the paper in front of me.
I looked at the symbols on the paper and the hairs on the back of my neck and my arms began to rise in response to that recognition. Involuntarily, my fingers traced the first symbol and my lips of their own accord formed the word but no sound was uttered from my mouth. Instead, the symbol on the page shimmered – dully at first and then with brightening strength until it lifted off the page altogether. Its ghostly presence danced in the air leaving a trace or plume of golden dust. It pulsed like light as if it were a living thing.
This symbol pulsating, luminescent, golden called to me.
I reached out a fingertip expecting that my hand would simply pass through it – that it would hold no solid form or shape. But instead my fingertip connected with the symbol and it grew brighter still, denser, tangible, and stilled in the air. Where my fingertip connected with it, I felt heat and cold simultaneously; felt it resonating, vibrating; felt my very being becoming one with it. It was like an incredible energy was building between and around the symbol and me. It was as if the air around us touched a string near breaking-point.
‘SAGE!’ St. John’s voice, urgent, infused with every emotion he felt for me called my attention and I turned my head to see him leaning forward, hand outstretched in horror. ‘Sage, listen to me! Do you trust me?’
I looked at the perfection of his face in the light cast by the symbol and I could see what I had not seen before. His face too was illuminated by the symbol and I could see where he had been touched by heaven’s light. I nodded.
‘Give me your hand, Sage,’ St. John ordered, his voice strong and purposeful. And he reached out to me across the aisle of the aircraft with his palm extended.
I moved my hand so very slowly and the symbol seemed fused to it as I reached across to St. John’s upturned palm. I placed my own on top of his, the symbol caught between us – light pulsing between my fingers, turning my skin diaphanous. Then I heard St. John’s voice in my head like piercing, exquisite golden music.
And then I felt a burning sensation, so intense I felt that I would pass out. But instead of burning flesh, I smelt the sweet scent of beeswax and potpourri and apple and hickory firewood that recalled for me the olfactory sensation I’d always experienced with the artefact. It lingered in the air as if it perfumed my skin, even as St. John’s exquisite voice fell silent.
I may have swooned then as St. John withdrew his hand and gently turned mine over so that the palm was exposed. And, looking down, I saw seared onto the skin as if branded was the symbol – a black and blistered livid thing that, even as I watched, melted away leaving behind only a fine white scar, raised upon my palm. An imprint of the symbol I’d drawn upon the paper was now branded upon the soft flesh of my right palm. The pain was fading fast – so fast that it was merely a memory within moments.
‘What happened, Sage?’ St. John asked me, his tone was soft.
I shook my head, dazed. ‘I don’t know. Honestly.’
St. John moved across the aisle to sit next to me and taking my hand in his, he traced the symbol with his fingertip, a perfect imitation of my own actions. I did not brush his fingers away, even though where he touched me my skin tingled beneath his strokes. I closed my eyes for a moment then shook my head again.
‘Try,’ he said.
For him, I tried.
‘I was distracted. I couldn’t settle. I thought to try to organise what I’d learnt on paper so I borrowed pen and paper from your duffle bag. The stewardess came and brought a fresh pot of tea. She was staring at you. I didn’t
like it.’ I ducked my head at this, feeling slightly sheepish. ‘I felt so overwhelmed with emotion. And when I looked down at the paper in front of me, the symbol was just there. I’d drawn it but not consciously so.’
‘And then?’ he prompted.
‘And then,’ I continued, ‘I traced the symbol on the paper with my fingertips and I felt that I knew it. But I didn’t really know it; I just felt that I should know it. And it then lifted off the paper and ... well ... the rest you saw.’
St. John put out his hand and cupped my cheek, forcing me to look at him. I exhaled sharply but did not move away.
‘Are there others?’ he asked, urgently. ‘Did you draw more?’
‘Yes,’ I replied, handing him the notepad which lay on the table before me.
He took it from my hand and, glancing at it, placed it in the open duffle bag.
‘I did not know you had such power in you. You shouldn’t,’ St. John murmured, jade green eyes looking at me sombrely, ‘Your connection to the Seed is stronger than I realised.’
‘This symbol, it’s from the artefact, isn’t it? What does it mean?’ I asked, already knowing, at least in part, the answer to my question.
‘Yes, it’s from the Seed. It means that you’re bound to the Seed now. You’ve been marked to confirm this connectedness,’ St. John said thoughtfully.
‘Really?’ I asked, my voice filled with wonder. ‘You know, when I was younger, one of my favourite books was The Belgariad – it introduced me to the world of fantasy. In Eddings’ series, each generation of the line of Rivan kings bore upon the palm of his right hand the mark of the Orb of Aldur.’
St. John looked amused. ‘Yes, I’ve read that series too. But no, you are not about to develop superhuman powers that allow you to bring a dead colt back to life.’
I felt slightly crestfallen. ‘Oh. Well, I suppose that was too much to ask for. But this symbol does show the bond between me and the Seed?’
‘Yes, a strong bond between you and the living Seed that will only continue to grow over time. More than that, I’m reluctant to say.’ St. John glanced briefly at the curtained partition that separated us from the galley and the flight crew beyond.
I understood from his brief gesture that even if the crew were working for the Vatican, we didn’t really know if they could be trusted. The Vatican’s Omerta was necessary, even here.
‘You know, I’m sorry that I woke you,’ I said, swallowing hard in remorse.
‘Don’t be sorry for something you cannot control,’ he said to me then and, lowering his voice, continued, ‘It was the power emanating from you both that woke me. You were speaking, Sage. You named the symbol before you and it was like a church bell being struck – its single note rising on a crescendo, building louder and louder until I thought the plane would shatter apart. Did you not hear it?’
My eyes had widened and I shook my head. ‘No, I heard nothing until you spoke. I heard your voice in my head.’
‘You can hear me speak and you too can speak but you cannot hear the language of the Seed?’ He stared down at me, his brows furrowed.
‘No, I guess not. Is it so important?’ I asked bewildered.
‘Not exactly,’ St. John murmured. ‘It’s more a mystery, that’s all.’
I rolled my eyes and smiled then. ‘Mysteries within mysteries. Typical.’
An answering smile lit St. John’s eyes and he removed his hand from where it cupped my face to lean back in the seat. I felt the loss immediately but said nothing, merely content to sit beside him feeling his closeness in the confined interior of the plane.
The companionable silence was interrupted by the rasp of the curtain along its rail as the flight attendant walked into the cabin and moved to St. John’s side. If she was surprised that he was awake and had moved over to me, she didn’t show it. She leant over him and asked if there was anything more he needed as the pilot was preparing to land at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle International Airport.
St. John immediately turned to me and asked, ‘Is there anything more you’d like, Sage?’
Though I declined, I noted the flight attendant’s acknowledgement of St. John’s care of me and the green-eyed monster inside me that had reared its ugly head earlier abated once more.
We landed on the tarmac and taxied into a private hangar at the far end of the airport; the Vatican’s crest emblazoned on the plane and the strings pulled by the Librarian Cardinal facilitating our easy transit through Customs and Immigration.
No wonder politicians and diplomats enjoy their lifestyles so much! I thought cynically. It was something a person could become very easily accustomed to, easily forgetting their idealism of changing the world in the process.
Surprisingly, Gabriel was found waiting for us as we exited the International Terminal, looking every inch the bored, debonair man of the world as he leant against the bonnet of his ostentatious red Ferrari which barely had space for an extra person behind the driver’s and passenger’s seats.
‘St. John, look! It’s Gabriel! Did you know he’d be here?’ I exclaimed excitedly and, not waiting for St. John’s response, launched myself across the remaining distance to plant a Parisian greeting on Gabriel’s surprised but genuinely pleased face.
‘Bah, Sage,’ Gabriel murmured into my ear as he swept me into a hug, ‘Mon petit chou, you will have to learn to curb your enthusiasm around my brother. I do not have a death wish.’
Gabriel turned then as St. John followed up my rear and approaching him to, in turn, give him an embrace, I caught sight of the expression on St. John’s face before he was enfolded by Gabriel’s slighter frame.
For a brief moment – so brief that if Gabriel had not pointed things out to me I would have missed it – St. John looked intensely displeased with Gabriel before masking his feelings behind his usual urbane façade. It mollified me to realise that if I had felt jealous over the flight attendant, St. John was equally jealous of his adopted brother.
Slipping into the back seat of Gabriel’s Ferrari, feeling as if my knees were around my ears because of the limited space and leaving the extra leg room in the front for the two Nephilim with their impressive height and long legs, I settled back to stare out the window at the passing scenery and allowed them the opportunity to discuss matters in their rapid-fire French.
It took a while to drive into Paris and I would have drifted off into a light doze if it hadn’t occurred to me that we were headed towards the Île de la Cité and not to St. John’s apartment first.
‘Where are we going? To visit Père Henri? Or do you immediately have to update the brotherhood on recent events?’ I asked Gabriel, confused by this obvious detour, ‘Is that why you were at the airport to pick us up?’
Gabriel’s eyes briefly met mine in the rear-view mirror. ‘Tiens! There has been a slight complication, Sage, while you and St. John were away. T’inquiète, there is nothing to worry about, but–’
He broke off and gave a very Gallic shrug as if this explained everything when it explained nothing.
‘It seems that the Seed has become sentient again,’ St. John elucidated, looking over his shoulder to face me. ‘We’re hoping that you might be able to shed some light on the matter, as you’re the only one who can communicate with it.’
‘Does it have anything to do with what happened on the airplane?’ I asked quietly, feeling somehow responsible.
St. John shook his head and stated, before facing forward in his seat again, ‘Not entirely, Sage, its awakening occurred around the same time we met with Elijah. So, no, it isn’t wholly related to anything that you may have done.’
I nodded in relief, feeling slightly better but no less concerned that my connection with the Seed was now needed to try to make sense of the Seed’s awakening. I wondered briefly if this was part of the dream I had on the train, a presentiment of things to come.
By the time that we arrived in the Île de la Cité, the silvery stain of evening was already touching the sky. Gabriel dropped
us near the cathedral and informed us that he’d meet us back at St. John’s apartment after our visit.
Taking my arm, St. John led me once again down into the Crypt. I decided that this was becoming a habit I needed to break – I’d been in far too many crypts and cemeteries over the past few days, spending time in the dark amongst the dead and ancient relics. Just because it was becoming more familiar, didn’t mean I was enjoying it. It amazed me to think that my Dad and St. John had spent much of their time doing just that as they frequently went on archaeological digs. But, perhaps to be fair, they weren’t expecting to encounter an ancient evil every time they entered one.
This time, for me, there was to be no encounter with an ancient evil. But still, it would be a test of my abilities as a Wise One. It wasn’t something I was particularly looking forward to. Under the thickness of my woollen overcoat, I felt myself perspiring; the thin material of my singlet top clinging to me uncomfortably.
‘It is good to see you again, my child,’ Père Henri said as he appeared in front of us, amongst the ancient ruins of a long-dead Celtic city. Taking my hands, he leant forward to brush his dry, papery lips against my cheeks.
‘And you, Father.’ I replied, grateful for the security that both these men provided me.
Père Henri chuckled knowingly in response, ‘Perhaps not under these circumstances. But, come, child. There is much to be done.’
Père Henri led the way further into the darkness of the Crypt holding aloft a modern battery-operated lantern in front of him, the kind that mountaineers used, its neon glow illuminating the path ahead and throwing long shadows across the ancient ruined ramparts. We followed in his wake, only stopping when he paused at a sharp bend where the path led off in one direction while, instead, we moved beyond the erected barrier for the tourists and took another way.
