This one, Old Rusty, had been here for more than thirty years, decommissioned after serving faithfully at various posts off the Northeast coast. It was listed on the National Registrar of Historic Places, and fell under the watch of the family of lighthouse keepers here, to Caleb’s father, and to his father before him.
Caleb crossed the ramp, stood on its cast steel deck, and peered into the large wooden deckhouse. Inside were controls for a steam chime whistle and a hand-operated 1,000-pound bell, along with framed sea charts, wheels, tables and cupboards. A few years ago it had been opened to the public as a museum, and Phoebe had worked inside part time, collecting donations and dishing out various historical anecdotes. Caleb wondered if they couldn’t apply for a grant to improve its condition a little. Slap on some paint, restore the deckhouse, smooth out those dents in the hull…
For some reason, that simple notion, so distinct from code-breaking and world-spanning quests, seemed idyllic. But he smiled and let that dream rest for now. He said goodbye to Old Rusty, and when he stepped off the pier he saw Helen up at the house, waving her arms. She seemed agitated.
Out of breath from the climb and sweating despite the temperature dropping and the wind picking up, he finally made it back up the hill. Before he could ask what the matter was, his mother’s words reached him on the breeze.
“Caleb! We found something.”
“Another ring,” she said, “this one on the ceiling. Something we never noticed before.” She led Caleb into the family room, where dozens of pictures were hanging on each wall. In the kitchen he heard the psychics taking a break, talking and laughing.
Helen pointed to two pictures. “We asked them to draw images concerning the Pharos chamber and the sign for Iron. Both Roger and Nancy have drawn what looks like a man suspended upside down. It seems to match the image and orientation of the Hanged Man on the Tarot.”
“This is above the third block,” Caleb said excitedly. He pictured the chamber again and tried to imagine being there. Having just endured the torrential flood of the second trap… he unhooks the harness and steps onto the next stone, feels the white powdery residue coating his skin and clothes. The air blowing around him, legs balancing, holding fast against the wind…
“Suspended…” He thought about it, imagined twisting back and forth. To what purpose? He thought of the Tarot again, and from what he remembered of this card’s symbolism, it had to do with letting go, giving in to God’s will. Continuing the themes of Calcination and Dissolution, this was a logical step in releasing the initiate’s preconceptions, his ego. But it also had to do with self-sacrifice. Martyrdom. He thought of Lydia, whose death had come about because Caleb couldn’t see the way past this step.
He slid into a kitchen chair and lowered his head. “I don’t get it. The symbolism of that Tarot card is ‘to win by surrendering.’ But how does that help us?”
Helen took down one sheet of paper and held it in front of Caleb. “This might be a clue.” She pointed to something the second person had drawn: a series of blocks crumbling around the hanging person. “What if the next trap has something to do with the floor falling away? And to survive it-”
“-you have to be suspended in the air.” Caleb rubbed his eyes and squeezed them tight, trying to see inward. “But what sets it off? I stood there for almost an hour one time, and nothing happened.”
“Did you step forward, toward the door?”
“No. Away.” He could see his foot lifting, starting to move forward. But it was as if he had a notion of self-preservation, and pulled it back and turned the other direction. “I guess I just felt there was no point going forward if I hadn’t experienced anything at this stage.”
“That may have saved your life.”
Before he could respond, a flash of white light and a burst of heat exploded inside his head with the image of…
… Sostratus leading his guest out, returning through the great seal and into the main chamber. The door closes slowly, the snakes again facing each other across the staff.
“The traps will be in place as I have described,” Sostratus declares, and directs Demetrius’s gaze down at the inscribed stones underfoot. “You have seen my vault below. You have seen its defenses.”
“I have seen.” Demetrius is pale, and shaking. “But I fear that with such defenses, what we place inside may never be found.”
Sostratus smiles. “No, my friend. Human nature, such as it is, will always lead men to yearn for the truth. And the legends we create will live on. The grandeur of this lighthouse will endure, serving as a beacon for generations long after its light no longer burns.”
“And how will you ensure that what it guards will be sought after? If no one knows…”
“Ah,” Sostratus says, stroking his white hair, “they will know, because you will tell them.”
“I?”
“Yes, you and those whom you select to keep this knowledge.”
Demetrius shakes his head. “No, Sostratus. That will not work. How can I find enough trustworthy individuals? And, how do I get them to pass along the information?”
“They will pass it on to a son or daughter, one per generation.” Sostratus places a heavy hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Choose your Keepers, Demetrius, then spread them over the world. Those selected will keep the secret. They will know what the lighthouse’s true purpose is, and what it protects.”
“These Keepers…” Demetrius takes a breath. “What makes you think they will not try to steal the contents for themselves?”
Sostratus shifts his arm around Demetrius’s shoulder. “My friend. That is precisely what I am counting on.”
As suddenly as it had begun, Caleb was torn from the waking dream. He clung to it and focused and tried to keep his mind wrapped about it, but the visions scattered through his grasp like fireflies on a warm summer night.
“No,” he stammered, trying to stay in the dream. “I saw them.”
“Saw who?” Helen was leaning close, pressing her cool hands to his burning forehead. “Caleb, you terrified me. I’ve never seen someone fall into a trance so suddenly. You were shaking, so pale. And your eyes-”
“I saw them,” he repeated. “Sostratus… and Demetrius.”
“The architect and the librarian?”
Caleb blinked away the remaining imprints of the two men and the great seal. “I’ve had several visions now of the two of them together as the Pharos was being built.”
Helen stood up and took a step back. In the kitchen the others were washing dishes and talking over the noise. “Maybe you should go back into the trance, if you can. Find out more.”
He took a deep breath. “You know I’m no good at forcing visions.”
“But this sounds like the connection we’ve been seeking!” She glanced at the kitchen and motioned for someone to stay away for a moment longer. “Caleb, if you can learn more, it might confirm the presence of the books you think are hidden there.”
“The books I know are there,” he corrected. “We don’t need confirmation of that. What we need now is to understand the puzzles, find a way past the traps. From what I saw, Sostratus constructed the vault and the door, then he built the traps around them and set everything into place. I don’t think I’ll get a view of anyone getting past them. I don’t think anyone ever has.”
“Someone must have. There’s the scroll.”
“Which might only be one Keeper’s attempt to pass the door. Maybe he failed, or maybe only some of the answers are in it.”
“Did you see any of these Keepers?”
“I think I saw Sostratus create them.” Caleb frowned. “And I heard something about his plan for the treasure’s release. He was relying on man’s inner nature-the Keepers’ greed, their curiosity-to one day seek out the treasure and find the way in.”
“Sounds like a lot of presupposition on his part.”
“But it was something Sostratus would do. He was tricky like that.”
Helen urged the o
thers inside and had them take their places again around the table. “Okay, that was symbol number three, and we think we might have the answer we’re looking for.”
“We hope,” Caleb added.
“We hope,” she agreed, giving him a wary smile. “Let’s continue, people. Four more to go.”
Caleb took a breath and settled back in his chair, for the first time in his life eager to join one of these sessions. As the others took their seats, he thought again about what his mother had just said.
“Four more to go…”
All of a sudden, Caleb was struck with the certainty that she was wrong. We’re missing something. And then he realized what was bothering him. The sealed door with the caduceus was only at the halfway point, maybe a little more. If the adage As Above, So Below held, then there was still a long way to go before they reached the beacon-the fire, the light of truth-where Sostratus surely hid his vault.
And if seven clues were needed to open this door, what would be next? Caleb tried to picture it, but saw only darkness. There would be the octagonal section, ending in the cupola and the pillared room with the mirror.
“Octagon, ” he whispered, shivering in a sudden chill.
Helen looked up, first at Caleb, then to the kitchen, where a brisk wind blew through the open door.
Waxman was standing there. His face was rosy. He stank of menthol. “Caleb,” he said. “I’ve just come from the University. Phoebe’s asking for you. She’s finished unrolling the scroll. ”
16
Caleb bounded up the steps just as the first snowflakes began to fall. At his back, across Elmwood Avenue, Mount Hope Cemetery sprawled over two hundred acres, its monuments and time-worn markers standing as mute soldiers among the rolling hills and saluting into the twilight. He took one last look, waved to the cab driver who had just dropped him off, then flung open the door and ran into the university’s archive center.
He had left Waxman and Helen at home to continue working with the psychics. He’d told them that realistically, poring over the fragments, taking the pictures, scanning them into the computer and playing with the resolution could take days before a translation was possible. But the real reason he had come by himself was that he didn’t care to share space with Waxman. The man still got under his skin, and of course he had never quite accepted Waxman’s role in his mother’s life. Caleb liked to think he had become more tolerant, but this was one instance where he had reverted to the petty emotions of a child. He just didn’t like the man. He respected that his mother saw something in him, although what that was Caleb couldn’t tell. There never seemed to be any real affection between them. They acted like business partners, and maybe that was part of the problem; Caleb didn’t make an effort because Helen never acted like he was her husband.
So Caleb convinced Waxman to stay in Sodus while he made the trip, promising to call as soon as they discovered anything significant.
He rushed down empty halls, pounding each step as hard as he could, relishing the sound of his echoing shoes, as if he were trying to banish any malevolent spirits lingering about. At the end of a long corridor, he took the stairs down three flights, past eerily blinking hallway lamps, then through the fourth door on the left.
Inside, Phoebe sat in her work chair in front of a laptop on a long table. The other interns were gone, sent home hours ago. Four binocular microscopes were set up along the table, and a large glass strip covered the unrolled fragments of the blackened scroll. Observing the shreds and scattered pieces, Caleb marveled that anything could be salvaged from of it.
“About time, big brother.” She had her hair in two pig tails, and she wore a red turtleneck with little reindeer embroidered on the collar. “Come on, see the fruits of modern technology.”
“Tell me you have a translation.” He walked around the table and pulled up a chair.
“Not yet, but I’ve scanned all the photographs taken at different wavelengths and uploaded them onto my laptop. I think I’m close, but need your help in interpretation.” She pointed to her screen and clicked with the mouse to shrink the image. “There are fifteen of these fragments. Here’s the first one.” She called up a tattered-looking strip. The lettering appeared blue, with the background now in white.
Caleb grinned. “Perfect! Thank Mother Nature for preserving this for us in volcanic ash.”
“Yeah, never mind all her children that she killed in the process.”
“Cycle of Life, sis.” He jabbed her with an elbow, hoping she knew he was kidding.
“Anyway. Here’s the symbol for Lead, and there’s the one for Tin.”
“And there,” Caleb pointed, “near the one for lead… a cone drawn around a figure of a man who looks like he’s praying.”
“Right, the next section is badly torn, and not much could be recovered, but next to the sign for Water we see the figure again, bound with two chains.”
Caleb’s excitement mounted. “So far, this scroll is two for two. Whoever drew this at least got that far. Wait, was this how the scroll began? Wasn’t there any introduction, any words to the reader?”
“Nothing,” Phoebe said. “Nothing but the word ‘Pharos’ and then that symbol…”
“The one for Exalted Mercury.”
“Yeah, that. Well, it seems more like a cheat sheet to be used by someone who already knew how to get into the chamber and what they were supposed to do once they got there.”
He tapped his fingers on the table impatiently. “Then Cagliostro, having seen only the first inch, knew this for what it was.”
The lights flickered for an instant, and Caleb’s eyes darted to the door, a window set in the middle. Did someone just walk by?
“So the third symbol,” Phoebe continued, “Iron…”
“It shows a man suspended above the floor.” Caleb quickly filled Phoebe in on what the psychics had just discovered.
“Three for three. So far so good.” Phoebe clicked again, and enlarged a section. “Fourth. Copper. Here, it’s like the writer couldn’t draw what’s going to happen, so he wrote, ‘Go below.’”
Caleb leaned back and rubbed his temples. He had a fleeting thought that maybe it meant the seeker was supposed to go down the stairs to the external vents and wait, but that didn’t make sense. There wouldn’t be enough time to then get to the next stone.
“What if-?” He began, but saw movement to his left. A face at the window, looking in, then it was gone just as quick. Caleb leapt to his feet.
“What is it?”
“Somebody’s outside.” He started toward the door.
Phoebe grabbed his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Evening classes are letting out.” She tossed her hair and batted her eyes. “I’m sure it’s just one of my many admirers.”
Caleb took a breath and sat down again. Something about that face
… the white hair, narrow, hawkish eyes… He had seen it only for a second, but he knew who it was.
Nolan Gregory.
“Keep working on it,” he told Phoebe as he stood up again. “I need to check something.”
“You’re going to leave me in here all alone?”
“I’m sure you can handle yourself, along with any ‘admirers’ who might come looking for you.”
“Fine, I’ll solve all the puzzles myself. You just go. Have fun chasing shadows.”
Caleb tore open the door and stepped into the empty hallway. He stopped and listened. To his right, up the stairs, a door closed. He took off in that direction, bolted up the stairs and out into the lobby, where he saw someone dressed in gray rushing out the front door.
The walls seemed to close in, narrowing as he ran. Caleb slammed into the door and burst outside. Four steps at a time, then onto the street. He chased the fleeing man across Elmwood Avenue. A black Lexus screeched to a halt just as he hurdled the front fender, before being blocked by a passing transit bus. “Come on, come on, come on!”
Seconds later he was across the street and racing up the hill. Caleb bou
nded the waist-high stone fence the other man had just climbed, and tore through the cemetery in pursuit. Snow had begun to fall in earnest, a driving sleet from the wintry evening sky. The shadows had grown long and jagged, and the tired elms sloped longingly towards their departed leaves. He chased Gregory through the older section of the cemetery, weaving around worn monuments and moss-covered stones, side-stepping miniature obelisks and urns, crosses and pillars. For an older man, he was in great shape. Caleb, on the other hand, was wheezing and cramping up his left side within minutes. But adrenaline kept him going.
Gregory looked back once, then sprinted toward the eastern boundary.
“Mr. Gregory!”
He connected with the path and lost his footing on the icy pavement, slick with scattered leaves. Caleb was almost upon him, but he dodged him and ran out through the gates.
He raced into the street, onto Mount Hope Avenue.
“Mr. Gregory, please!” The old man turned, and in an instant Caleb saw his eyes shining their defiance — and then he disappeared in a flash of white batted against the grillwork of a Ryder truck. The air split with the sickening sound of crunching bones, followed by a squealing of tires. Caleb’s heart lurched but he kept running, now chasing the flopping, rolling body twenty feet away. Nolan Gregory lay twitching in the gathering snow.
Caleb held up a hand and shouted, “Call 911!” and then knelt beside Nolan. His face was clean on one side, a bloody, shredded mess on the other. One eye was missing and his nose had been crushed. His mouth opened and a dripping cavity full of shattered teeth tried to speak.
Caleb touched his shoulder, but then took his hand away, afraid to cause the man any more pain. “You didn’t have to run,” he said, making fists out of his hands. “I just wanted to know… wanted to ask you why.” He leaned forward as the snow turned to freezing rain, mixing with his sweat and running into his eyes.
The Pharos Objective mi-1 Page 21
