The Book of Q

by Jonathan Rabb

  The sudden spray of light from within—a milky white radiance far purer than anything he had expected—forced him to wince. It seemed to emanate from the walls, an undulating mass of flawlessly smooth stone. Directly in front of him, six steps led down to the floor, which reflected an equal luster, no less luminous than the arched ceiling above, the overall effect that of a cube of light dug deep into the rock. He made his way down, sliding his fingers along a nearby ridge of wall—cold, wet, tacky to the touch. It gave the impression of something primeval, as if it had been culled from the very soul of the mountain. Even when he noticed the real source of light—a group of torches placed at the far end of the sanctum—he continued to marvel at the stone’s effect. That the flames implied a recent visit from someone other than himself didn’t deter him. Instead, he concentrated on the torches, too dim to be producing the kind of light enveloping the space. Somehow, the walls, the floor, the ceiling were absorbing the torchlight and throwing it back with an added vibrancy.

  Even from behind the six tapestries that hung along the four walls.

  Putting the geological mystery to the side for the moment, Pearse drew up to the tapestry nearest him. Considerably faded—early medieval, his best guess—it appeared to depict the Ascension of Christ: a lamb asleep in the lower right-hand corner, angels flanking Him on both sides, more of the heavenly host above. Christ blessed them all as He rose, clouds parting before Him, His face and torso far rounder than one might have expected. More curious, He wore the robes of an Old Testament mystic, a book covered with astrological symbols clutched in His right hand.

  At first, Pearse attributed the idiosyncrasies to a Byzantine style, but the longer he stared, the more he realized how much of the scene felt incongruous, the usual cast of characters somehow miscast—the Virgin Mother nowhere in sight, the apostles conspicuously absent. Even the way the light radiated from Christ seemed skewed.

  It slowly dawned on him why. This was no Ascension, but a Heavenly Ascent. No Christ, but a Manichaean prophet. Enoch, as Pearse now recalled his Apocrypha. Who else would be holding the Book of Celestial Physics? He glanced around the chamber. Each of the tapestries wove a similar story of a Seth or an Enosh, the figures virtually indistinguishable from one another. Only one of them stood out—the largest, hung along the back wall, depicting a man twice the size of the rest. Miniature versions of the other prophets stood within his open palms, their tiny auras subsumed within his own brilliance.

  Mani, the Paraclete, larger than life.

  From his vaunted perch, the Great Prophet stared down on the chamber, gnosis issuing from his every pore in a stream of letters and symbols woven into the cloth, the focus of his attention a raised platform at the center of the room. His gaze seemed to indicate its special importance. Pearse followed Mani’s cue and moved toward it.

  A series of wooden sculptures, each no more than two feet tall, surrounded the four sides of the pulpit—Byzantine figures carved in narrow ridges, maroon and aqua pigments peeling from their faces and hands. They looked like typical Eastern icons, eyes peering up at the tapestries, each of the little men in a classic pose of humble piety. And yet, there were subtle differences among them—a hand gesture, the tilt of a head—enough to draw Pearse closer. As he moved from one to the next, he realized how much they varied, each one with its own specific identifying mark: an olive branch clasped to the breast, a garland rung about a shaven head, a tiny book held in the right hand. A book? At once, he turned back to the tapestries, instantly aware of the connection. Each of the sculptures represented one of the figures on the walls. Like Saint Jerome with his lion, or Saint Catherine with her wheel, the Manichaean prophets defined themselves by their own artistic props.

  But whereas six of them hung from above, the grouping around the platform numbered seven. Pearse quickly matched statues with tapestries, the odd one out all too obvious when he finally came to it. Its short hair and lack of a beard had confused him at first. Only when he looked more closely did he see the tiny indentations at the center of each palm. Jesus as prophet. Jesus as one more in a long line leading to Mani. Why He had been denied His Heavenly Ascent remained a mystery. Perhaps to confirm Mani’s elevated position. Pearse had no answer. What he did have, though, was far more exhilarating.

  Compared to the others in the chamber, Jesus remained earthbound, static. Unmoved.

  Pearse needed only to help him “take wing.”

  He placed the lantern on the platform and knelt by the figure. Its robes draped to the ground, a hint of sandal peeking out, enough to reveal a rusted nail driven through the arch. At first, Pearse thought it was merely decorative, a symbol of Christ’s final agonies; bending closer in, he realized it was actually bolting the statue to the stone below. He glanced at the other figures; each was managing with a single brace attached to the platform behind. Jesus alone required a separate means of mooring.

  Pearse dropped to his chest and began to examine the few inches between the back of the figure and the pulpit. This time, he could find no release mechanism. Pulling himself to his knees, he placed his hands around the statue’s waist and gently tried to lift it. The wood groaned from the mild exertion, the stone below shifting ever so slightly. A hint of movement. More than that, he watched as a powder puff of dust rose from behind the robes as he released, caught in an unseen stream of light. He inched over to the side and lifted again, this time his eyes fixed on the stone. There. A thin shadow along the back edge seemed to deepen as he pulled, another crack of light. The stone was rising. More dust as he let go. He tried it several times, but the bolt refused to give way, no more than half an inch before it locked the stone in place. He needed something to wedge into the gap, something to force the stone up from below.

  He surveyed the chamber. Nothing but tapestries and statues stared back. He glanced over at the torches, each one firmly affixed to the wall by a web of ironwork, thick bands of metal impossible to dislodge.

  So what about a rusted one?

  Jumping to his feet, he grabbed the lantern and ran to the steps. Two minutes later, he was using the lamp’s base to hammer against an eroded pin hanging from one of the corridor walls. A long metal strip dangled at its side, both closer and closer to release with each strike. The sound jarred, its echo a dull thud within the wildly shadowed space, lantern light flying in every direction. With a sudden clang, both pieces fell to the floor. Pearse snatched them up. A minute later, he was maneuvering the long strip into the half-inch opening.

  Again he tried to lift. And again the stone refused. He pressed his full weight onto the improvised lever—his arm and chest muscles straining at the effort—bringing the gap to nearly an inch before his body started to shake. With one last surge, he drove down onto the iron wedge, hoping to snap the stone from its bolt, but his knees began to slide out from under him, twisting him to the side. The lever shifted as well, forcing the stone away from him rather than up. To his complete amazement, both continued to move, the stone scraping a few inches across its neighbor before his arms finally gave out.

  The bolt, he discovered, had been designed not to keep the statue in place but to act as its pivot. Reaching his fingers into the gap formed by the rotation, he shoved the stone farther, the sound of grinding slate on slate reverberating throughout the chamber. When he had opened up a wide-enough breach, he picked up the lantern and stared into the hollow.

  A pit some two feet deep opened up below the statue, more of the luminous stone forming its walls. At its center sat a square metal box perhaps ten inches high, twice that in both length and width. He reached down and pulled it up. It was lighter than he expected. He set it atop the platform and stood, marveling at its simplicity.

  A plain box, untouched for nearly a thousand years, more remarkable for what he knew to be inside.

  It was almost too much to think of opening it, a kind of ecstatic wonder at the prospect. To this point, he’d been playing a game, prodded by a Manichaean dare, distracted by its ingenuity. No
w, all the ciphers, the meanings within meanings, fell away. He stood alone, a single iron latch between himself and an unimagined reality. He didn’t think of Angeli’s warning, nor of his own desire for clarity. He felt only insignificance, the mountain before him again, a divinity he could revere but never fathom. Paralysis born of faith. He sat, light-headed, the shimmering whiteness of the chamber draining him still further.

  He had no idea how long he had been sitting, staring, when a flicker of torchlight snapped him back into focus. He reached for the box, an instant of resolve enough to bring his hand to the latch. More a device to keep the agents of decay at arm’s length than to provide additional security, it easily gave way under a bit of pressure. Evidently, anyone who had gotten this far could be trusted with the contents. He lifted the lid, a strange odor wafting out, somehow familiar, though he couldn’t quite place it.

  More unsettling, though, was what he saw. A small dome of glass rested on a swath of velvet, between them what looked to be a leather-bound codex, no bigger than the size of his hand. A waxlike substance coated the crease where glass met velvet—a sealant of some sort—further protection against the elements. Next to it lay a pile of gold coins, their presence equally jarring. But it was the dome itself that troubled him most, the glass far too pure to have come from the hand of a tenth-century artisan, its craftsmanship that of the fifteenth or sixteenth century. All sense of wonder quickly faded; he dislodged the glass from the strip and picked up the codex. Flipping it over several times, he realized it, too, belonged to a different age. In fact, it was no codex at all, but a prebound book, the style of binding mid-Renaissance, the texture of the paper—when he finally opened it—confirmation of the dating.

  The final slap was the language. Latin. Angeli had promised Greek. Where was the parchment they had gone to such lengths to protect? Where? And what had someone left in its place? His frustration and disappointment began to boil to the surface.

  “I don’t suspect you’ll find much on Ambrose down here.”

  The sound of the voice bolted Pearse to his feet, all traces of anger quickly lost to the momentary shock. He spun toward the door.

  There, peering down at him from the steps, stood Brother Nikotheos, a small revolver in his hand.

  The monk waited. He set his lantern on the top step and slowly made his way toward the platform.

  “A monk with a gun,” he said. “That doesn’t look right, does it?” Pearse remained stock-still as Nikotheos spoke. “Then again, neither does your being down here. I can explain the first. The second …” He let the phrase trail off as he drew closer. “How did you find your way into this place?”

  Pearse watched as Nikotheos caught sight of the box, then the pit, his sudden surprise all too obvious. A moment of confusion. And yet, he had shown none of it while moving through the chamber, no hesitation with the tapestries or statues. Only with the hidden cache. Which meant he had been here before. Felt comfortable here. And that could mean only one thing.

  Once again, Pearse would have to think like a Manichaean.

  Stifling the pounding in his chest, he tried to recall the words from the prophetic letters, the “signs of reception.” He knew they were his only recourse. Placing the book on the pulpit and, eyes ever on the monk’s, he slowly began to speak in Greek: “In the salutation of peace, I extend myself to you. In the radiance of light, I call you brother.” He held out his right hand, palm turned to the ground.

  For what seemed an eternity, Nikotheos said nothing. He looked down at the outstretched hand, then at Pearse, a slight narrowing of his eyes. In that moment, Pearse thought he had miscalculated entirely, the man in front of him no part of the Manichaeans. He half-expected him to press the gun closer; instead, he watched as the monk slowly let it drop to his side. A moment later, he was extending his hand, placing it on top of Pearse’s. When he finally spoke, his words were barely a whisper: “For the light is within your bosom, an unreproachable light, the sign of the prophets within you.”

  Heard aloud, the phrase momentarily stunned Pearse, a thousand-year-old legacy come to life. Quickly recovering, he replied, “O Iesseus-Mazareus-Iessedekeus.”

  “O Mani Paraclete, prophet of all prophets.”

  “Eternally existent in very truth.”

  “Éeema, Éeema, Ayo.”

  The two men stared at each other, Pearse now unsure how to render the words he had read into action. He had no cause to worry, as the monk immediately released his hand and stepped toward him. Kissing Pearse on both cheeks, Nikotheos made the sign of the cross on his forehead—two fingers and thumb, in strict Orthodox fashion—followed by the tracing of what looked to be a triangle over his heart. That’s what that meant, Pearse thought to himself. It had been the one part in the letters he hadn’t understood. Pearse repeated the gestures, then both men embraced.

  As Nikotheos pulled away, he said, “Be received into our community.”

  Pearse nodded once, eager to keep his responses to a minimum. A ritual of greeting was one thing; an entire canon of belief was another. The monk appeared to be thinking the same thing, his expression that of a man not yet fully convinced.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken those words,” he began, the gun—albeit at his side—in plain view. “You’re the first from an outside cell to come to the mountain in many years.”

  “Yes,” answered Pearse

  “And the first unannounced.”

  Again he nodded. Clearly, it would take more than a few memorized lines to quell the lingering doubts. However much he wanted to guard against anything that might expose him, Pearse knew he had to engage the monk, gain his trust. More than that, he recognized the opportunity that now presented itself. Here was a modern-day Manichaean, a man with insights into a world of which Pearse had only begun to scrape the surface. He had to make the most of it.

  “None of them was allowed inside this chamber, though,” Nikotheos added, the suspicion growing in his eyes. “None of them even knew of it. And yet, here you are. Without anyone to show you the way.”

  A telling admission, thought Pearse. The Manichaeans on the mountain kept their Vault hidden, even from their own, despite the fact that they had no idea what it held. Nikotheos’s reaction to the pit had said as much.

  “It’s what I was sent to find,” Pearse answered. “The Vault of the Paraclete.” He expected the added detail to put the monk’s mind at ease.

  Instead, Nikotheos’s eyes went wide. It was several moments before he responded. “How did you know that?” he asked, his tone far more pointed than only moments before.

  “Know what?”

  “The name. How did you know the name?”

  The response puzzled Pearse. “I don’t understand.”

  “The Vault of the Paraclete. Only those of us of Phôtinus know that name. It’s been ours to protect for a thousand years. Yet, somehow you know it.” Nikotheos tightened his grip on the revolver. “You find the Vault. You know its name. And you come from the outside. How is that possible?”

  Pearse stood motionless. He slowly realized what he had unearthed—the final line of defense between parchment and pursuer. None but the monks knew of the chamber’s name; and they knew nothing of what they protected. The ideal security system, one set up in such a way that should anyone ever have come across a reference to Athos or Phôtinus in his search for the parchment, his reward upon reaching the mountain would have been blank stares from the monks. “Parchment? We know of no parchment.” Were that person to have mentioned the Vault, he would no doubt have met a far more unpleasant fate. Even now, Pearse couldn’t be sure just how reluctant Nikotheos was to use the revolver. He imagined that the one thing holding the monk back was the fact that his captor was inside the Vault and not asking to be shown to it.

  Pearse had little choice but to up the stakes. “Then there must be another source.”

  Again the monk’s eyes narrowed, the suggestion even more perplexing. “Another—That’s impossible.
No one else knows of it. No one else could have known of it. Not even the summus princeps.”

  Not yet willing to dive into whatever the “summus princeps” might be, Pearse knew he needed to make the most of the monk’s confusion. As casually as he could, he asked, “Do you know why you keep these torches lit all the time?”

  The question had the desired effect. “Why we … What are you asking me? What other source?”

  “Do you know why?” Pearse repeated.

  Again, the monk hesitated. “We keep the name hidden, the torches lit.”

  “And yet you’ve never asked why?”

  “Why?” His frustration mounted. “There was no reason to ask. We protect the eternal flame for Mani. What other source?”

  Pearse let his eyes wander to the walls and tapestries. “It was so I could find this place,” he said, his tone now almost inviting. He turned and looked directly at Nikotheos. “You’ve kept the torches lit so that the ‘Perfect Light’ could lead me here.”

  “What?” His reply was barely audible. “The ‘Perfect Light’?”

  “The other source.” Pearse paused. He had to see how much the monk knew of the scroll. “Do you understand now?”

  Nikotheos stared back, confusion slowly giving way to a moment of profound realization. “The scroll?” he asked in whispered disbelief. “You have the scroll?” The significance of what he had said only now struck him. “And it brought you here.” His eyes grew wider still. “The ‘Hagia Hodoporia’ is here.” Pearse watched as the monk’s gaze tracked the discovery from pit to box to glass to leather-bound book. His puzzlement returned. “That … can’t be. The ‘Hodoporia,’ it’s supposed to be—”

  “Much older,” Pearse cut in. “Yes. I know.”

  Hagia Hodoporia, he thought. Holy Journey. The treasure hidden away for almost a millennium. In two words, Nikotheos had confirmed not only his familiarity with the hidden knowledge of the “Perfect Light”—something evidently not restricted to the Roman Manichaeans alone—but also his complete trust in Pearse; who other than someone of the highest order could know of such things? The former explained away all the “impossibilities”; the latter gave Pearse the freedom to delve deeper.