by Mark Teppo
The church was a small chapel, tucked down an alley about a mile from the cemetery. A sort of locals-only church that wasn't on any of the tourist maps, nor were there any indications on the street that a place of worship existed down in the alley. I found it because the leys converged on it, currents arcing off the main flow into this nondescript alley.
The place was lit by soft lights, recessed in the floor behind the row of column arches set off a few feet from the walls. Mounted to the western wall was a massive cross of wood, and hanging peacefully, as if asleep, was an equally enormous Christ figure. Tall candelabras stood in attendance on either side of his nailed feet, and light from the candle flames danced on his skin.
He was made from glass.
I knelt on a prie-dieu in the front, resting my forearms on the padding rail, so as to get a better look at him. The work was clever in that the scrap of cloth covering his waist was real as was the crown of thorns on his head, and his features and hair were a mix of paint and colored glass. Unless you had some experience with the luminous qualities of glass, you wouldn't realize what the material was. It would be easy to leap to the conclusion that the way the light reflected off his skin was from a divine influence, that God Himself blessed this church and this idol of His son.
I hadn't been in a church in several years, as I typically didn't have much reason to traffic in their sort of communal psychosis. Like all modern religious spaces, they are a confusion of profane noise and sacred reverberations. It is difficult to find a space that is pure in its harmonic resonance with the energy flow, as most secular-based religions have spent centuries codifying their blindness. Occasionally, you could still find a place that wasn't completely moribund-the Grotto, outside of downtown Portland, for example-but most of the nexus points are no longer located beneath the old holy stomping grounds.
Our temperament shifts, over generations, and while we never lose our fear of the unknown, we hide from it in different temples now.
At least, that had been my experience with churches in the United States. Some of the older places, ones that had history going back a hundred years or more, still had the magick in their bones. Too many years of regular service, too many penitents praying for guidance, too many dreamers asking for some sign of the Divine. These sorts of echoes permeate stone after a while, and the stone never quite lets go.
This church had some history in its bones. The building was clearly the oldest structure in the alley, and while the inside looked like it had been made over in the last hundred years, the leys still converged on it as if they had been redirected by several generations of foot traffic. Or maybe it was something else.
What do you want me to See, Old Man? There was no answer from the Chorus. I was going to have to figure this out myself. Even in death, he was still teaching.
Like all new students, I had struggled with the semantic distinctions the Watchers placed on certain words: seeing and Seeing; knowing and Knowing; Witnessing. This uppercase emphasis like we were reenacting one of Byron's Romantic epics. But, gradually, like all initiates, I came to understand the subtleties of our discourse. Language is an imperfect system, more so when you start working in several tongues at once (cultural mores start to become an issue; more than once I felt like I needed advanced degrees in history and cultural anthropology to understand the lessons given to us). Almost like Platonic Ideals, some words were echoes of older, more enlightened, concepts. An extra stress on the initial syllable (a capitalization, if you will) implied the higher meaning of the word.
The distinction between seeing and Seeing, for example. I could describe the physical attributes and placement of all the objects in this church, but such a passive description failed to explain why they had been placed the way they had. Such mundane objectivity couldn't encompass the movement of energy and Will required to make this scene the way it was. Who made the Christ? Why had they chosen glass as their medium? What effect did that have on the congregation? Or on the energy patterns?
Glass could distort or mirror, affording the viewer either a filtered view of reality or a reflection. It didn't have any identity of its own, forever slippery to the viewer. A perfect vehicle for inspiring meditation and personal reflection. Look upon my face, my children, look up and tell me what you see? asked the face of the glass Christ. What pains you?
The echoes in my head.
During the decade I had been running from my shadow, I had been using the energies of stolen souls to complete myself. I was whole with them, and while I couldn't quite ground myself like other magi and open myself up as a conduit point, I could still exert my Will on the world around me. I was a schizophrenic with a dominant personality matrix, and that ego consciousness was the singular point around which my world spun. The rest were echoes, trailing ghosts caught in orbit. But the spirit of Philippe seemed like it had its own satellites.
Like looking in a mirror and seeing another mirror. And the more you compare that reflection to the endless parade of fainter reflections, you realize each one is subtly different.
Could an organization have memory? Could it have the same sort of eternal life that a pile of old stones did? I didn't really know what it meant to be Hierarch of the Watchers, but the echoes of Philippe's history in my head had a peculiar edge that wasn't like other lives that I had absorbed. Granted, the Chorus was different since I had been changed by the explosion of souls in Portland, but my relationship with the memories-with the other personalities-was still the same.
Each soul that has passed through me changed me. I was no longer who I was prior to being initiated into the mysteries, which isn't to deny the fact that all experience changes us. But profane experience builds upon the history that has gone before. We remember things because they remind us of other events and sensations, and the strength of any given memory is commensurate with the amount of like material it can bind itself to. Our ego identities are raised up by this tower of memory, but when I examine the stones of my memory, I find them strange and alien. I do not know where they came from, or how they came to be lodged in my mind, but time and energy has welded them to the foundation. I was the sum of the history of all those who have been touched by the Chorus, and as my shadow was intent on poisoning me for a long time, a lot of this history was black and vile. Fear, loathing, hate, sexual release.
If a core sample were taken from this pillar of rock, like a geologist examining strata of stone, the bottom layers would be akin to compressed layers of black shale and the topmost layers would be lighter. More porous, like sandstone. In there were untainted memories: Marielle as a child; an auburn-haired woman who I knew without knowing was Detective John Nicols' wife; and cathedrals, lots and lots of cathedrals. St. Mark's in Venice, the Basilica in Rome, the cathedral at Ulm, Sacre-C?ur, Saint-Sulpice, Mont-Saint Michel, Notre-Dame.
And this tiny church, nearly lost in the shadow of the surrounding tenements. Nearly lost in the relentless progress of modernity.
Was it the solemn serenity of this place that I was supposed to See? The glass Christ. The Chorus kaleidoscoped under my pressure, splintering into a rain of colored glass. Some of the shards formed pictures, panels that turned toward me for an instant before shattering again. I stood, and wandered over to the mounted stained-glass panels. Yes, some of those images were here. The north side detailed the Stations of the Cross. But there were subtle differences: the inclusion of extra figures, not typical of the iconography; alchemical symbols, inscribed on clothing and floating in space above characters; and the expressions of the figures weren't as traditionally sorrowful.
Not these, the Chorus sighed. They drifted across the glass, making the white cloaks glow so that the soldiers of Christ became floating ghosts. Not here.
I prowled further, investigating all the tiny niches. The rain in my head had stopped, and the only image left was a Christ figure, floating on the cross, his heart a flaming ball in his chest. Like Dali's hypercube Christ, but without the geometric overtones. The picture w
as there in my memory, but I couldn't find it in any of the panels.
"Can I help you?" The priest was dressed in gray-pants, jacket, t-shirt-and his white collar seemed more like a nod to couture than a religious vestment. He was a head taller than me, and clearly in shape. The loose cut of the jacket couldn't hide the breadth of his shoulders. His eyes focused on a spot beyond my left shoulder, and his face, though weathered, was calm. His right eye was surprisingly green, a vibrant emerald, in contrast with the empty whiteness in the center of his left. He stood quietly, hands clasped like he was holding a small moth, waiting for me to find my tongue. His hands were harder than his expression. He hadn't always been a priest.
"Salve, Pater," I said. "I am a weary traveler, seeking guidance." Seeking a sign.
"In corde prudentis requiescit sapienti," he said, nodding.
Wisdom lies in the heart of one who has foresight. One of the Old Man's favorite lessons.
The priest had just offered me a countersign to my mention of "traveler."
"I have lost my faith, Father," I said, as the Chorus swirled in response to his phrase. It wasn't the church itself I was here to see, but the man inside it. "I wonder if you might have a place where a frater such as myself could pray, where I might receive such wisdom."
"Of course," he nodded, acknowledging my recognition of his countersign. "I have a private study. Let us adjourn there. Please, follow me."
He led me to a narrow panel set in the wall on the left side of the sanctuary. It turned out to be a door with no knob. I felt a brief whisper of magick and the door opened, swinging silently inward, and after we passed through, it clicked shut as quietly as it had opened.
No knob on this side either, the spirit of Detective John Nicols acknowledged.
I had thought the priest was leading me into a sacristy, one of those tiny rooms off the main area of the church, where the priests usually stored all of the mundane tools of their profession. But this was a hallway, a narrow, low-ceilinged corridor that inclined downward. Tiny paintings hung along the walls. Watercolors. They were lit by tiny spotlights that ran along a strand of fine wire. I was about to ask who the artist was, when I realized why they seemed so familiar.
In the converted studio at the farmhouse, along the Aude. Where Marielle chased the geese. I painted them. No, I corrected that thought. Philippe painted them. That was his memory, tying itself to my soul.
The paintings weren't copies; they were studies, preliminary versions of the stained glass in the church, and in them, the differences from canon were even more pronounced. Especially when I examined them with Chorus-sight. The silver symbols filling the open spaces became sea creatures floating on vibrant waters.
The last painting was the truly radical departure: Mary Magdalene, accepting Christ's flaming heart. It was close to the one I had been looking for, but broader in scope, and I wondered if what was in my head was a detail, a small scrap of this picture.
At the end of the hall, there was another door-one with a knob this time-and it opened into a long, narrow room. High windows, narrow slits in the stone, ran along one wall, providing pale and indirect light for the room. Bookcases filled most of the wall space, and along the wall opposite the windows were a rectangular desk and two chairs. A single book lay on the table, open, and its page was covered with tight rows of dots. Past the table, a woolen screen afforded a little privacy for a small niche, complete with a narrow cot, neatly made, and an unremarkable wooden wardrobe.
In the far end, beneath a large oak cross mounted on the wall, was a kitchenette. Hot plate, microwave, refrigerator, sink, free-standing pantry. Another table-this one more square-was pushed into the corner, and two more chairs-matching the pair next to the reading table-were loosely arranged at the table.
The priest waved a hand toward nearby chairs as he walked over to the pantry cabinet. "Tea?" he asked as he got out a battered metal pot and filled it from the tap.
"Please," I said. I ran a finger along the spines of the nearest row of books, and selected one at random. It was written in the same patterned script as the book on the table. I ran my fingers lightly across the page and felt the raised bumps.
He didn't watch me put the book back, but I could tell he heard me replace the volume. I went to the table and sat in one of the chairs, waiting quietly for the water to boil. Watching him as he performed the ritual task of measuring loose tea into two tea strainers by touch. He was quite practiced and conscious of putting me at ease. He looked down at the tea as he measured it, though I noticed that his head was cocked a little to the right-much like he had when we had first spoken in the church. He favored one ear.
"There," he said, as he put the two covered porcelain cups on the table. "We will let it steep for a few minutes."
The clock on the microwave was flashing "12:00." As if it had never been set.
Up close, I could see that it was a piece of glass that gave his right eye its bright color. Faint scars ran along his cheek and neck, and part of his right ear was gone. The right eye watered, a perpetual tear forming in the corner of his distressed socket.
"I was prepping a chandelier," he said, innately aware of the question on my mind. "At Versailles. The studio I was working for had been commissioned to provide art for a centennial celebration. We were behind schedule and were overtaxing our hot shop. Too much heat, too much glass, too many of us-tired and exhausted-and there was an accident. Some of it I stopped," he said, showing me his hand. Knots of scar tissue roped across his palm, and more curled around to the back. "Some of it grazed me," he continued, "taking nothing but skin, but one piece stuck. The doctors thought they got all of it out, but it had broken off in my head. Grazed the inside of my eye socket as it had gone in. It didn't show on the X-rays, and several months later, it was just there, caught in my eye." He shrugged. "And there it stays."
"And the left?" I asked.
He smiled. "I stared too long at the sun of the forge."
"Before or after you became a priest?"
He lifted the covers from the teacups and removed the tea strainers. "Milk or sugar?" he asked. His smile was all the answer I was going to get to my previous question.
"Both," I said.
Once we had both doctored our tea to our satisfaction, he sat across from me, silently, staring at nothing in particular, and sipped his tea. He gave no indication that he was in a rush to talk, and-gradually, grudgingly-I became aware of how noisy I was on the inside.
The Chorus was buzzing in my spine, electric sparks of memory and energy that I couldn't quite control. I wanted to move; I wanted to lay the deck of cards on the table and put the priest's hands on them. I wanted to ask him questions, so many of them fighting for position against my tongue. And part of me still wanted to flee, wanted to run and hide from the magick storm brewing across the leys of the city.
But I sat there, instead, with a modicum of patience, and listened to the micro-ambience of this inner sanctum. I was a weary traveler, and without speaking a word, he gave me the space to find some wisdom.
VII
Eventually, the priest gave a small nod, and pushed his cup aside. The sound of the china moving across the laminate surface of the table dispersed the meditative ambience of the tiny apartment.
"It is not an easy task to quiet oneself," he said. "Many of us forget. Your energy is still much too quick, but I can see the impression of its orbit now. There is a lot of history bound to your light."
"I'm impressed," I said. "Most can't see me at all."
He snorted. "Most are blinded by their own light. Too caught up with the glitter of their own thread. All they see is the surface, the forward and backward of their lives."
"But you see deeper than that, don't you? Beneath the Weave."
His hands moved on the table, as if he were re-arranging pieces of a game. "We teach the new ones to call it the 'Weave,' because that is a concept they can readily understand, but it is like teaching a child to play checkers. It's a simple ga
me, two-dimensional really. Only later are they ready to play a richer game on the same board."
"Chess."
He nodded. "The Akashic Weave extends in every direction, and when I gave up my sight, I was to see it more properly. I was able to understand the true nature of how the threads bind together."
"The big picture."
"Yes. There is a balance to all things, and we are too small and mean to want to believe such universal hegemony exists, but that is part of what we must strive toward. An understanding of the reflections and shadows that the unconscious symbols of the Divine leave in their wake. So that we, too, may be creators."
The Chorus caught a slice of memory, and turned it over, spinning it like a coin; it opened up. A small burst of memories exploded: the fiery eye of the glass furnace; the priest pulling and stretching a piece of red glass into a flat sheet; on a nearby table, a rack of colored sheets-green, blue, yellow, white-cooling. The priest wore a modified pair of goggles. Only the left eye was protected from the light of the forge.
"You made all the glass," I said, answering my previous question about his vocation. "From his designs."
The Chorus twisted the images in my head, turning them inside out so as to see a different perspective. A different time, in the same place. The priest, now kneeling before the furnace, sweat and grime staining his naked torso. A pair of hands entered the frame-my hands-and removed his protective goggles so as to firmly grasp his head. I held his face still as he opened the blast cover of the furnace. Tears started from his eyes, droplets like molten glass streaming down his cheeks. In his right eye, the emerald shard of glass glittered; in his left, a howling whiteness devoured his cornea. I could feel the heat from the forge on my hands.
