* * *
The thick brown sacks were pulled off their heads and they discovered they had been taken to another place and time by the book without knowing it. This they could easily tell with the view that swept across their eyes when they adjusted to the light flooding in through many glass windows, and of course, the Huns never had glass windows on the rocky walls of their temporary cave dwellings!
The children were sitting on the floor of a sizeable hall resting on one another’s backs, and the strong rope going round their waists several times to hold the three of them together was as effective in restraining them as the terrifying meaning of its ominous presence in the whole picture. Obviously, it was top priority for their captors to prevent their escape by any available means and in any way possible as this could spell trouble for them if it ever happened.
These hooded men now stood motionless around them, dangling what looked like long whips from their right hands and holding the brown bags in their lefts, while a lone figure stood on a high podium in the farthest end of the hall, his outlined face an unfamiliar one.
This man was staring at one of the tall windows decorating the hall’s lengthy, opposing walls, and as he turned to start coming down the wide flight of stony steps before the platform, the children realized they were in the nave of a traditional church.
“Let me guess—Cardinal Marcos?” Nora began.
“I used to be, mademoiselle,” the man jovially agreed, languidly taking his forward, downward steps one at a time. “Until, that is, I was excommunicated by the Pope and a very unfortunate incident brought me down here some years ago.”
This one was creepy, Stephanie thought. He’d been there more than a year!
“What do you want from us?” Matthew demanded from their new acquaintance.
“It’s a pity you came across the most powerful book in history—more notable than even the Christian Bible—and failed to appreciate this, no?” the former priest remarked in a constrained Frenchy voice. “It’s a pity you three have also stalled my plans for a very long time now without knowing it.” He sounded rather angry in his Frenchy English and the Quentins waited in dreadful anticipation for him to come up.
Just like the monks watching over them, his tall, stout figure was dressed in a black monastic garment, which exposed only his head and hands and nothing more. His cleanly shaven face was crowned with a bald head under which were deeply set eyebrows sheltering penetrating blue eyes. His nose was straight and strong and his jaws were bold and firm—another indication of one used to getting his way no matter what opposed him.
He looked menacingly imposing as he stopped before the children, painting a thinly veiled smile across his lips. The hard jaws belied the warmth he was trying to exude.
“What now?” Stephanie couldn’t help asking him and he suddenly spun away on his heels, still trying to smile.
“First, we’ll start with a brief history of the book, right?”
“The book?” Matthew started, realizing he no longer had it in his possession.
“Yes,” Marcos agreed, lifting up the hardcover for the boy to see. “This is as old as the papacy, you know.”
“Wow,” Nora dryly blurted out. What else could be more interesting?
“It was made by a Jewish sect of book makers and book binders known as the Sicarii Kabbalah Masada, after Constantine the Great, part-emperor of Rome, accepted Christianity and issued the Edict of Milan with his co-emperor, Licinius.”
Nora sighed. How lucky were they to have met a historian this time! “And when was that?” she asked.
“313 A.D.”
“So where are we?” Matthew cut in and the priest turned to glare at him.
“You are in France in the nineteenth century, mon ami,” Marcos replied. “I was sent here by a grave error, which I have come to regret these past few years.”
The former cardinal fell into deep thought for a short while before raising the book for all to see and resuming his historical tale with smooth flourish. “This book was made when papyrus was the preferred medium for storing written material, but its pages also underwent a secret toughening process its maker never divulged before his death.
“After this, the book was bestowed unearthly powers that transform it into typical book forms of the age it finds itself in when in use; this makes it easier for the wielder, no?”
“Wow,” Matthew exclaimed, his foster sisters staring at him. “No wonder it kept changing form,” he said with excitement, completely ignoring them. This behavior encouraged the former priest, who turned to him with a smile before resuming his lecture.
“Its cover is from the toughest leather then, monsieur,” Marcos aired with confidence. “You must appreciate it was bound even before the first known Roman codex was produced, yes?”
“And what’s a Roman codex?” the boy wondered. “Why do you think the book was made before this?”
“Because I know,” the tall man snapped at him, the smile fading completely. “What if I tell you it took these people ten years to arrive at this book? What will you say to that, eh?”
“Ten years?” Nora stared at the book with incredulity. “Now, we’re getting somewhere.”
“You don’t believe me, do you?” the former cardinal observed. “I know you have met the Booklords, no?” He took their silence as a ‘yes’ and turned away from them again. “Those vile creatures are demons who were once angels,” he began and the children exchanged glances. He walked over to a painting of Jesus Christ standing on a bloodied Satan and carefully studied the fresco. “They assumed God was unjust in his dealings with the Jews and wanted to help them regain their Old Testament glory, hence they employed the services of the Sicarii Kabbalah Masada when Constantine became part ruler of Rome.
“Around this time, Christianity was flourishing under Rome and the Jews were being persecuted all over the empire! The Sicarii Masada, which was a fanatical Jewish sect, was working undercover to assassinate the Roman emperor, himself. So they were contacted by these heavenly servants—whose desire to help had driven them into an unholy alliance with the devil—and promised a fiendish spell of many evil powers, which Satan, the devil, had agreed to provide under one single condition.”
“And what condition was that?” Nora asked.
“That the concerned angels must win over God’s heavenly servants for Satan within a given time after he had done his part, right?”
The Quentins were speechless. They never knew the book’s history had such ominous undertones.
“Members of this Jewish cult were told to secretly study the Kabalistic teachings of the time and make books using a procedure hitherto unknown to established civilizations and Roman codex makers of those days,” the man continued, “and this was how they came to be known as Bookmakers or Bookbinders by those trusted Jewish leaders intimated of their existence, objectives and supreme goal.”
“So how did they come about this particular book?” Nora asked him, now fully engrossed by this interesting tale.
“It took them ten years to get it right, mademoiselle,” Marcos continued less dramatically. “Within those ten years, many books were produced and discarded, because they could not withstand the strength of the mighty spell Satan wanted to bestow on them! The story has it, however, that a young Bookmaker called Jehoash came up with a very tough material he processed from papyrus to make the pages of this book. It received the spell without much trouble and was hailed by the Sicarii Masada as godsend.”
“What’s this spell all about?” Matthew suddenly wondered.
“It bears the evil power of Shurabi or Reversed Reincarnation, which I also call Reversed Transmigration, or better still, Reversed Metempsychosis,” the ex-priest revealed with pride. “This had the core understanding that an individual can live so many times after each death and could be sent back in history through these various places and times, and even beyond man’s early days on Earth, whenever his name was written on a book blessed with the S
hurabi.”
“I seee,” Stephanie exclaimed.
“How is this possible?” Nora asked, still trying to comprehend the mystery behind the black book.
“With Lucifer’s help, the angels imparted this spell into invisible Hebrew words they inscribed on the pages of the book, thereby transferring the spell to the book,” said the former catholic father.
“So if you know the words, you know the spell, right?” Nora deduced.
“And you take control of the book, yes?” Marcos agreed, nodding.
“Why are you telling us all this?” the girl asked.
Marcos stiffened and his sad smile reappeared. “For the fun of seeing you regret your recent actions, mademoiselle,” he replied, grinning slyly. “For the sake of seeing you realize what you have missed due to your ignorance all this while the book has been with you, my dear, and to show you why I must leave you here when I go back.”
“So you’ve got a point there,” Nora agreed, shrugging it off. “We can never think of getting back the book or even using it while tied up like this. You’ll always have the book, so what will you do with it?”
“Not so fast, my friend,” the former catholic priest warned her, obtaining her unequivocal silence with his menacing tone and wagging finger. “Remember you’re my prisoner and we must not jump the story, right? Right! I only answer your questions because I like the . . . the history.” He turned away to stare through one of the windows in his peaceful, dreamy countenance. “I was able to unravel the invisible Hebrew on the book’s pages when I was in Rome and this helped me shed more light on the mysterious spell,” he continued. “This was how I came to control the book.”
“But you’ve jumped the story,” Stephanie pointed out in a small voice.
“Sorry, where was I?” Marcos asked everyone there, but the monks shook their heads in ignorance. He spoke with them in French for some time before focusing on his prisoners again. “Yes, the Sicarii Masada just received this gift from God, so they thought,” he brightened. “And in the light of this ‘gift,’ they added ‘Kabbalah’ to their name. Sicarii Kabbalah Masada.”
“Why?” Matthew asked.
“The Kabbalah is a Jewish form of mysticism based on studies of the scriptures for occult references to God, the universe and its establishment,” his kidnapper explained. “It also promotes the belief in reincarnation, or transmigration, and . . . and its earliest known form originated from the 1st century as a modification of an existing form of Greek astral mysticism, in which the adroit, through meditation and the use of magic, journeys blissfully from end to end and beyond the seven stellar spheres . . . .”
His audience was totally lost. Marcos stopped talking when he realized he was talking to himself. But then, he cleared his throat and resumed his tale:
“The Sicarii Masada was told to study these teachings, as I earlier said, in order to obtain priceless knowledge that would help them discover the key to the invisible Hebrew letters Lucifer had inscribed on the book’s pages. This would enable them to take,”—snapping his fingers—”control of the book and the terrible spell in its pages just like that.”
“You studied the Kabbalah as well?” Nora asked uneasily.
“Yes, yes, I did,” the man agreed.
“So why couldn’t they remove ‘Masada’ to shorten the name?” Matthew wanted to know.
“They could never bring themselves to do such a thing, monsieur,” Marcos regretted, studying the boy. “The Jewish fortress of Masada fell to the Roman general, Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus, in 73 A.D. and majority of those who perished in it were the Sicarii or Assassins, a fanatic sect of rebels formed by Judas of Galilee in 6 A.D.”
“Judas of the Bible?” Nora began.
“No. Another . . . Judas,” Marcos corrected her. “This one was alive around 6 A.D., so he’s not the one you talk of, eh? Well then, the Sicarii Masada had as majority of its founders, those whose forefathers were the original Sicarii of the fortress of Masada and Masada was left in the new name to remind them and the Jewish nation what the Romans did there.”
Nora shrugged. They could’ve as well added Jerusalem for all she cared. “How did you know all this?”
“By studying Jewish history and the ancient books, no?”
“And what will you do with the book?” Matthew demanded.
“We’re coming to that, monsieur,” the boy was informed. “I will certainly let you know when the time comes to do so, but for now, I am yet to finish my story.”
The Black Book Page 65
