The Shadow Lamp

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  The first glass reached the stone paving, struck, and bounced. As it rebounded, cracks appeared throughout the fragile, transparent body. By the time the vessel met the second glass coming down, the cracks had widened and the shards were already flying apart. The second glass completed the process, smashing through the fractured debris of the first to strike the pavement, renewing the cycle of demolition as the remaining glasses rained down around it.

  Kit watched with a kind of dread wonder as the squat globe of the teapot completed its third rotation just as it reached the courtyard floor; its rounded side simply collapsed on contact with the stone, disappearing completely beneath the curved bulk of the pot. As with the glasses, a network of cracks appeared on the surface of the ceramic, widened, and separated; velocity and momentum combined to propel each individual fragment back into the air. The hot tea, suddenly liberated from the constraining walls of the pot, rushed outward, a circle of liquid fingers as the broken shards of stoneware turned and tumbled in the air, glinting in the sunlight.

  Tea, glass, pottery, the black dregs of spent tea leaves—all of it, for one splendid, perfect instant, seemed to hang in the air, caught between rising and falling, each droplet and sliver and speck suspended, at rest. Then gravity took over once more and all resumed their inevitable descent, striking the stone paving in a cacophonous concert that reached Kit’s ears in a chaotic clatter of orchestrated destruction.

  All this unfolded in stately progression with the uncompromised clarity of a dream. And in that long, unhurried instant, as the shards and splashes spun and collided in the air and on the ground, Kit glimpsed something of the slender, elusive nature of reality . . . of the deeply entangled, sublime unity of Creation and the manifest physical effects of unseen forces . . .

  Kit saw, and understood, what it would be like to witness the End of Everything.

  He sensed a movement to his right and Cass was beside him. Even before the shattered fragments had finished their chaotic dance and come to rest, she was in motion. Her hand entered his field of vision, and he saw that she clutched her handkerchief and, bending towards the wreckage, that she intended to use it to wipe away spatters of hot tea.

  With the same clarity of vision, Kit watched the crumpled square of white in her hand ease and unfurl, and he remembered the last time that same cloth had been used—to catch the spilled substance of the shadow lamps. As this realization arced through his mind, he glimpsed the pale-grey smudge of rare earth as Cass spread the cloth to lay it flat over the brown liquid on the marble floor. Her fingers flexed to release the cloth and Kit grabbed her wrist.

  He straightened, pulling Cass with him. Still gripping her wrist, he gently withdrew the handkerchief from her unresisting grasp and held it to the light so they both could view what had been fleetingly revealed in that split second before it would surely have been obliterated: a spiral whorl with a straight line directly through the centre and three separate circular dots spaced evenly along the outer edge of the spiral’s curve.

  They gazed upon the symbol and their thoughts were as one, as if there was but a single consciousness between them: truly, there was no chance, no coincidence. From the lowliest atom in a grain of sand at the bottom of the deepest sea to the most far-flung galaxy, the universe, the entire created cosmos, was a seamless, unified, and interwoven whole.

  Epilogue

  Water oozed down the slime-covered walls and dripped from the tiny iron grate in the ceiling of the subterranean keep. The stagnant air was a rank and fetid stew laced with the odours of human excrement, rotting straw, and rodent droppings. The light from the slit in the wall that served as both window and air shaft did nothing to ease the gloom; if anything, it only made the murk worse by offering the illusion of illumination. The cell was a large square room steeped in perpetual chill from the seeping water, its stone walls tinted a sickly green.

  Archelaeus Burleigh had been incarcerated before, briefly, following an incident where a maimed pickpocket in Florence had met the sharp end of his lordship’s pig-sticker cane. In that instance, the Florentine polizia had taken the view that excessive violence had been used in what, to them, was a minor infraction of propriety. The harried Italian magistrate concurred, and the earl was summarily sentenced to sixty days in the chokey. That he actually spent fewer than three days in gaol before Con and Dex showed up to spring him was entirely beside the point.

  Yet the gaol in Florence had been a luxury suite compared to this one: a disused storage cellar beneath the Rathaus that the Prague city officials used to warehouse miscreants. And this time Burleigh could not anticipate a swift rescue, because all four of his Burley Men were locked up with him. To make matters worse, after five days in detention, hunger was dangerously sliding into starvation, owing to the fact that prisoners awaiting trial were required to purchase their own food, clothing, and necessaries or have them provided by relatives. Most prisoners were locals with plenty of friends and family on the outside who could be counted on to supply what was needed; Burleigh, however, had no one. No one, that is, aside from the alchemist Bazalgette and, perhaps, Emperor Rudolf himself—both of whom might as well have lived on the moon for the apparent impossibility of getting a message to them. Thus his sole recourse was to the grudging cooperation of the turnkey, who provided Burleigh and his men with the barest minimum of grossly inferior foodstuffs for which he reimbursed himself liberally from Burleigh’s purse.

  Accordingly, they had been given a pan of stale bread, three wizened apples to share among them, several handfuls of rancid walnuts, and two hunks of mouldy cheese—at the cost of a feast at one of Prague’s best eating houses. That was two days ago, and the victuals—if that was a word that could be applied to the poor fare they received—had only served to stoke their hunger, not to sate it. In the meantime, Burleigh had tirelessly campaigned to have his case brought to trial at once. This request fell on deaf ears. In Prague, there seemed to be no way to compel a magistrate, judge, or anyone else to bring a case to court that he was not inclined to process. Five days had passed, and with no word of any impending proceedings, hope for a speedy trial had dissipated.

  “We’re going to rot in this stinking hole,” grumbled Dex, “if we don’t die of plague first.”

  “Instead of moaning all the time,” suggested Con, “I say we try and tunnel our way out. That’s the only way we’re going to get free.”

  “Ent you the bright one!” hooted Mal. “Dig ourselves through solid stone! You got a magic shovel, then?”

  “It’s better than sitting here in the muck and stink,” challenged Con.

  “’Twouldn’t stink so much if ya wasn’t ’ere,” replied Mal.

  “Shut your gob!” growled Tav. “Both of you put a cork in it. Boss is working on getting us out. He’s got a plan—just see if he don’t.”

  Truth be told, however, Lord Burleigh did not have a plan. Their arrest had been so precipitous and unexpected, the possibility so unimaginably remote, that for once he was literally taken unawares. There was no alternate plan, no way out. And lacking the ability to get a message to anyone on the outside who could apply the influence needed to move matters along, digging their way out, however unrealistic, did seem to offer their best and likely only hope of escape.

  “Is that so, Boss?” asked Con. “Tell us, then. Tell us the plan.”

  “We’ve sat ’ere long enough,” grumbled Mal.

  “We wouldn’t be here at all if you—” started Tav.

  “Enough, all of you!” snarled Burleigh, rousing himself from his corner. “Listen!”

  Into the sudden silence they heard the distinctive clack of the gaoler’s hobnail boots on the stone flagging. Presently the footsteps stopped and there was the rattle of a key in the lock, a loud clack, and then a low groan as the iron-clad door swung slowly open. Light spilled into the cell, dazzling the prisoners, who could not abide the radiance that suddenly pierced the gloom. They blinked and shielded their eyes as out of the light emerged a tower
ing giant with broad shoulders, a shapeless head, and a weirdly hunched back.

  Thinking the torturer had come, the Burley Men shrank back into the shadows. The oversize figure entered the cell and looked around, the gaoler moving in to stand behind him. As the prisoners’ eyes adjusted to the light, they saw that their visitor was not a hulking rack-master come to torment them—it was the big baker from the coffee shop. A green hat lopped over his round head, and on his back he carried a bulging cloth sack; his ample middle was swathed in a green apron dusted in floury smudges. He said nothing—merely stood taking in the dank atmosphere of the prison, his expression, if he had one, difficult to read because his face looked as if it had been trampled by horses. Puffy and inflamed, covered in liver-coloured welts; one eye a painful purple slit and the other rimmed in black; his lips split, distended; and his nose cut and swollen . . . he stood in towering silence, exuding the warm, homey scent of the bakery from which he had just come. The prisoners caught the scent and it made their empty stomachs squirm.

  Lord Burleigh roused himself from his corner. “You,” he said coldly, his voice a hateful slur. “Come to gloat, have you?” He drew himself up. “Come to see me grovel?” He spat in the baker’s direction. “I won’t give you the satisfaction.”

  How much of this Etzel understood was unclear. He merely nodded and moved farther into the room, swinging the bag off his shoulder and placing it between his feet on the floor, where he opened it to reveal a number of loaves of fresh bread, a half round of soft cheese, ten green pears, a bunch of carrots, and two large sausages. Turning, he gestured to the gaoler hovering in the doorway, who entered bearing a pitcher of dark ale and a bucket of fresh water.

  Burleigh stared at the food and drink, then raised his eyes to Engelbert. He pointed at the little heap of food. “Was ist das?” he asked in German.

  “I am sorry it is not more,” replied Etzel, speaking slowly and with some obvious discomfort through his ruined lips.

  How was it that the man’s jaw was not broken? wondered Burleigh. “What is this?” he asked again.

  “Herr Arnostovi told me only this morning that you were here.”

  “Look at all that grub!” said Con, edging towards the heap of food. “I could eat the lot, I could.”

  “Get back!” warned Tav. “Not ’til Boss says it’s okay. There’s some trick here—I smell it. Right, Boss? It’s a trick, ain’t it?”

  To Etzel, Burleigh said, “What’s your game, then, baker?” He thrust an accusing finger at the food sack. “What does this mean?”

  “It is for you,” replied the baker simply. “Zum Essen . . . for eating.”

  Burleigh gazed at the pudgy dumpling of a face—battered and bloated and damaged from the beating he had received at their hands. “I can see that,” said Burleigh. “What do you—ah . . .” He searched for the German words. “Was woollen Sie?”

  “You ask what do I want?” wondered Etzel. “I want nothing.”

  The Burley Men had edged close around the bag of food, and though they could not follow the conversation, they were mightily interested in the outcome. Con, unable to wait, reached for one of the little loaves of fresh bread. Tav swatted his hand away and gave him a warning glance.

  “Ha! Then you will get nothing from me,” crowed Burleigh, his voice strident and hollow. “You hear, baker? Nichts!”

  Engelbert shook his head and backed away. “Tomorrow is Sunday, but I will be able to bring more in two days.”

  With that, he was gone. The gaoler retreated, pulled shut the door, locked it, and departed. In a moment, their footsteps could no longer be heard. Only then did Burleigh stir. He moved to stand over the pile of food, then prodded it with an exploratory toe. It was what it appeared to be: fresh bread, fruit, cheese, sausage, and a few vegetables.

  Burleigh stood for a moment, gazing at what in this place amounted to a banquet, and then raised his eyes to the door once more. He turned away and moved back to his place in the driest corner of the cell.

  Tav called after him, “Boss?”

  There was no reply, so he tried again. “Boss, what should we do with the food?”

  Still Burleigh made no reply—so Con tried, saying, “The food, Boss—what do you want us to do with it?”

  “Divide it up,” muttered Burleigh finally. “Divide it fair and square—each man responsible for his own stash.”

  Tav fell to with a will and the others crowded close around, keen to make certain the division was done fairly. Burleigh watched from a little distance, a deep frown creasing his countenance as he tried to discern what cruel-but-subtle game the baker was playing, or what advantage he hoped to gain from this remarkable deception.

  For deception it was—of that Burleigh was certain. A master of deceit himself, he could smell it from a distance. However, this particular ruse took a form he had never before encountered, and it would take some thought to crack it. But he would—oh yes, he would discover the treachery, and when he did, he would wield his knowledge like a weapon.

  As the food was being shared out, Dex voiced aloud what the rest of them were thinking. “Why is he doing this?” He looked around. “Boss? I don’t get it. What does the big oaf want?”

  Burleigh lifted his head and gave a ragged laugh. “I don’t know yet, but I will find out,” he replied. “Mark me, all of you—I will find out.” His voice rang hollow in the cell. “And when I do, that fool of a baker will curse high heaven that he was ever born.”

  The Great Divide

  AN ESSAY BY STEPHEN R. LAWHEAD

  During a recent visit to Rome, in the sweltering month of May, I took refuge in the coolness in Santa Maria degli Angeli, that glorious mash-up of a church designed by Michelangelo and built within the surviving walls of the ancient Baths of Diocletian, a Roman emperor not known for his kindness to Christians. The huge, cavernous space is a haven from the noise and heat of the modern city, and I could feel my body temperature and blood pressure slowly drop as I strolled into the vast hall and began to look at the inscriptions, shrines, and architectural details that naturally capture one’s attention.

  It was quite a surprise to turn a corner in the nave and come face-to-face with a magnificent statue of that great heretic, Galileo. And what’s this? An elaborate historical exhibit dedicated to the man who was maligned by the church simply for insisting, on the basis of evidence obtained through his telescope, that the earth and all the other planets of our solar system are actually orbiting around the sun. His insistence, as everyone knows, challenged the prevailing view that the earth—God’s chosen venue for His story of creation and redemption—was also the physical centre of the universe: an important theological point at the time. An earth that moved around a stationary sun was an unacceptable, possibly dangerous proposition.

  And so Galileo fell foul of the church, was arrested, tried for heresy, convicted, and summarily excommunicated. Galileo went on, of course, to become the poster boy for the Church-versus-science debate, his experience most often cited as illustrating the great divide between science and religion. Yet here he was, in all his bronze glory, honoured in Rome (the location of his humiliation) and in a Christian church. Had I got the story wrong?

  As a scientist, Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was engaged in the great ferment of scientific and philosophic inquiry of late sixteenth-and early seventeenth-century Europe. Well known and respected, and himself a priest, he initially enjoyed strong support from within the Church. Pope Urban VIII was a close personal friend and early defender not only of Galileo but of scientific endeavour in general. In fact, Urban was so enamoured with Galileo’s ideas that he wanted to be seen as aiding his friend and championing the new theories. To this end, Urban wrote a little essay (“Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems”) to be included in Galileo’s page-turner on planetary motion and the flow of tides. This is where Galileo’s trouble actually began.

  The pope, for all his enthusiasm, was perhaps not the best one to expound on the intri
cacies of the daring new theories under consideration; as a scientist, his work was not quite up to standard. Moreover, it rankled Galileo to have anyone—even his very powerful and influential friend, Urban—sharing any portion of the limelight with him. Reluctantly, however, he agreed to include the pope’s essay—how could he refuse? But in a startlingly ill-advised move, Galileo cast a portion of his new book in the form of a dialogue among several characters: chiefly, a wise, knowledgeable scientist called the Academician, who elucidated all the brilliant cutting-edge ideas, and a nincompoop named Simplicio who spouted archaic nonsense. No prizes for guessing who the scientist character represented, and whose thoughts the moron mouthed.

  Naturally, when Urban read the result he was furious. Here this man Galileo, whom he had befriended and defended, was mocking him before the world, calling him a simpleton and holding up his ideas to universal ridicule. Urban, his enormous papal dignity abused, turned to Cardinal Bellarmine for aid and advice. The cardinal, a devoted scholar and theologian, naturally sided with his superior. There were forces about that were deeply critical of Galileo—not so much for his science, but for his noisy insistence on making theological pronouncements that exceeded his expertise on such issues. So a case was brought against Galileo. No hasty kangaroo court, much less a rush to judgement, the case proceeded at a slow snail’s pace, lasting almost a decade. In the end, without the pope’s patronage and protection, Galileo was at last called before the Inquisition to answer multiple allegations. Unable to mount a coherent defence, he was found guilty of heresy. (It is worth pointing out that Galileo was considered by many to be a scientific heretic long before the Church got involved in the controversy. Colleagues who clung to old views and theories censured him, not for his theology, but for his science. Flying in the face of scientific orthodoxy can be every bit as dangerous as flouting religious convention.)