by Mark Teppo
The Mason was a master at geomancy, the sort of art that could create the oubliette around the chapel. And the soulquake as well. That wasn't the sort of artificing done in a minute. The whole assault was meticulously planned, well in advance. Move quickly, neutralize your opponent's home base advantages, and deliver a killing blow that didn't deplete any of your own special assets. Contrary to Lafoutain's belief, it could be done with conventional weaponry. Quite handily.
It was a raid that gave its planner deniability, provided no one survived, and the fact that non-magi were used for the strike team implied a scorched-earth sort of end result. Everyone dies, the strike team included.
But such deniability wasn't all that useful to a man who wasn't there. If the Mason had been gone for some time, then who had called for the strike? And why make it look like he was involved?
Unless, the Chorus suggested with a sly whisper, he went underground. Before the killing started.
Pulling out a bottle of wine from the severely depleted rack, I returned to the counter, mulling over that option. The strike was pre-planned, and if it was set to go with a phone call, then it could have been triggered by a blind relay: someone who didn't know who or why they were calling.
But someone had been Watching through at least one of the assassins. A remote viewer. Someone who had triggered the spell when they were sure of maximum yield. Was it more than one Architect? Was the Mason supplying the tools and the men, and someone else was providing the insight into the remote locations?
That question suggested some organization to the Opposition, and with organization came some sort of planning. I may not know who the Opposition was entirely, but I did know they were operating-even in their own limited cells-under orders. And those orders had to come from some sort of hierarchical structure.
Intuitively, I knew I was on the right track with this line of thought, and while the presence of the Chorus increased my reliance on intuition and whispered suggestion, I felt there was a very definite hand working behind the scenes. Someone who could twist thread as easily as the Old Man could. Someone-or some cadre of like-minded peers-was making us dance to a tune of their making.
And we were. While I trusted Marielle, and her relationship with Lafoutain was relaxed enough that it seemed like we were with the good guys, this ad-hoc safe house seemed like an act of desperation, a plan that was thrown together at the last minute. The sort of decision made in the heat of the moment, without proper consideration for all the ways it could go wrong. There was something amiss in this place, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
Four Architects dead. How many left? The Chorus twisted around the question. Three, I thought. Delacroix had mentioned them a few minutes ago: the Mason, the Scryer, and the Thaumaturge. Was the Mason working alone, or was the conspiracy broader than that?
Who stood to gain the most?
La Societe Lumineuse had a pyramid-shaped hierarchical organization. One man at the top, hundreds at the bottom, and each layer fed into the one above it. One Hierarch, supported by seven Architects who were drawn from a field of twenty-one Preceptors. Each Preceptor sponsored a Protector-Witness-his eyes on the ground, so to speak-in addition to having a coterie of Viators-warriors well-versed in the way of magick. Below the Viators were the Travelers and Journeymen. Seven ranks, each of the lower rank having seven sub-degrees within it. Highly ordered, highly stratified, and everyone knew their place within the structure of the pyramid. Power flowed up, and the bottom rank was constantly jostling against their betters in an effort to make room for one of them to advance.
The way to force the issue was ritual combat. Properly declared and Witnessed, it was an acknowledged power grab, a calling out by juniors of their betters, and other than the standardized trials for rank and degree, it was the only way to advance in the organization. Ritus concursus. The right of might to declare itself.
However, this sort of willy-nilly leapfrogging wasn't the way the top of the pyramid was organized. The Architects, secretly chosen by the Hierarch, were his named successors. Cristobel's flip response to my jibe about the Secret Masters of the Illuminati aside, the identity of the Architects was protected so that they weren't targets for the overly eager and impetuous. If the Hierarch grew too ill to fulfill his duties as the Silent Guardian Who Waits, then he was replaced by one of his Architects. They, in turn, elevated a fellow Preceptor into the power vacuum of the empty Architect spot. And so on down the pyramid.
Cristobel had likened the assault on the chapel to the Blitzkrieg of Nazi Germany, that swift and decisive surgical strike into the enemy's heartland before they knew it was coming. If the Opposition had known who Cristobel was, then it followed that they knew the identity of the others as well. Send out synchronized strike teams, hit all your targets at one time, and you ended up with a situation much like the one we were currently in.
Lafoutain scratched his beard. "You're thinking awfully hard over there, M. Markham. I can smell the neurons burning."
If the Architects were supposed to fill in for the Hierarch, and were his chosen ones, then why had Philippe come to me? Why had the pyramid been shattered? Why me, Old Man?
The doorbell chimed, splintering the swirling mass of the Chorus. What had been forming in them-that niggling detail so frustratingly elusive-vanished. Gone, like a curl of cigarette smoke into the evening air.
Lafoutain wiped his hands on the nearest suitable cloth, which happened to be his shirt. "Finally." He strode into the hallway.
"Must be the food," I said.
Marielle nodded absently. She picked up the discarded knife and hacked off a corner of the shrinking block of cheese. "You know who attacked the chapel." It wasn't a question.
"Yes, Cristobel-" I caught myself. "The first thing they did was shut down access to the grid. Cristobel couldn't draw any power. Then, they sent in their goons. Redirecting energy flow like that is geomantic magick. There's only one Architect who specializes in that school of thought."
"And you think he's hiding himself to confuse us? If we can't reach him, we assume he's dead like the others."
"If you were taking on an opposing force that was probably-at least in raw numbers-larger than yours, yeah, I would. It'd be the tactically smart thing to do."
Lafoutain bustled back into the kitchen with a clutch of plastic bags in either hand. Two more men trailed behind him, carrying more of the same. They swarmed around us, clearing space on all available surfaces to lay out take-out containers. Marielle and I grabbed our wine glasses, the wine pull, and the unopened bottle, and got out of the way.
The newcomers were young-early twenties, wet-behind-the-ears Journeymen, still eager to do the menial tasks. They had been sent out on a quick food run, but it was clear they had over-compensated. The counters were filling fast with a variety of exotic choices. Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian: the mix of curries, spices, and sauces made my head spin and my mouth water.
Lafoutain didn't even bother with a plate. He dumped half of one container into another and then filled the space with vegetables and meat from the next two boxes. "Eat," he said, waving a pair of chopsticks at us. "Help us make some room. This may be the last hot meal any of us has for a long time."
"Fatalist," Marielle said, but she went to the cabinets and found a pair of plates.
"Pragmatist," he replied, shoving an egg roll in his mouth.
My stomach agreed with him.
XII
While the others came down to the kitchen to mob the take-out, Lafoutain led Marielle and me into the dining room. Delacroix glared at me as we passed in the hall, and judging by the expression on a few other faces, no one was terribly pleased to meet Marielle's new friend.
I could imagine their reaction if they knew the rest of it.
The dining room was in disarray. Chairs were scattered around the table, a collection of energy drink cans were piled in the corner of the room, and the top of the table was covered with newspaper effigies, sigil pages (sc
raps of paper covered with symbolic script done in heavy permanent marker), cheap tourist trinkets and other pewter icons used in warding, the stubs of a few candles: the signs of many hours of occult work. At the far end of the table, written out across several pages taped together, was a series of concentric circles, covered with handwritten scrawl and a scattering of black dots.
The working model of the society's network reminded me of a two-dimensional representation of the Tree of the Sephiroth, circles within circles. In the middle-Ain Soph Aur, the central point from which all light emanated-was the Hierarch, and floating throughout the concentric rings were small circles marked with names. The twenty-one Preceptors. More than half of them were filled in, and beside four of them were their Architect titles, written in all caps.
THE VISIONARY: Father David Cristobel. Dead.
THE HERMIT: Emile Frobai-Cantouard. Dead.
THE CRUSADER: Matthew Wincott. Dead.
THE NAVIGATOR: Pierre Juneaux. Dead.
I found Jacob Spiertz on the map. There was no title next to his name. They didn't know.
"It doesn't look good." Lafoutain gave voice to what we were all thinking.
I put my half-empty plate down and leaned over the diagram, reading some of the notes scrawled across the page. Names of the rank, with lines connecting them in a desperate attempt to chart allegiances. This wasn't all of them, not by a long shot, just the names of Watchers who could be clearly identified as belonging to one school of thought or another.
Once a magus reached Viator, a choice was declared-a rubric of occult study that took one under the aegis of one of the Architects. I had always thought it was an educational and vocational choice, but looking at the tangle of lines, I began to see the hierarchy in a different light. Given the circumstances and rampant paranoia now sweeping the rank, suddenly the distinction between schools of thought looked a lot like battle lines.
Is this what you wanted? I asked the spirit hiding in the Chorus. Is this your master plan? To force everyone to chose a side?
A dark whirlpool swirled in my skull, and the Chorus vanished like smoke into the yawning mouth. Lightning arced from my anger, lighting the mouth of the hole, and the outline of old spirits lit up in the smoke. I reached for them, my current electrifying their shapes. They whined and tried to slip down the hole faster, but I had a chain now. One and another and then another. Like tiny cut-outs for a Christmas tree, little children all holding hands.
Tell me. I need to know. Tell me what you want from me.
The whirlpool shivered and white ice formed on the rim of its lip. The hole closed and opened again, a parody of a mouth. Tell me what you want, it parroted back at me.
You came to me. You wanted me to kill you. In a time and place of your choosing. Away from their eyes.
The body must be destroyed, the whirlpool hummed.
Is this your answer? I demanded. Your Architects were supposed to Witness your death. They were supposed to be on hand to elect a successor. By dying out of sight, did you bring on this chaos?
Opportunity, Philippe whispered through the swirling motion of the Chorus. I gave them opportunity.
"Opportunity," I whispered, the word slipping out of me.
"Pardon," Lafoutain said, reminding me I wasn't alone.
The Upheaval, Cristobel reminded me, flitting across my perception like a ghost of a hummingbird. A trickle that became a flood. A crack in a dike means the wall is no longer strong; time becomes its greatest enemy.
"It was just a matter of time," I said.
"What was?" Lafoutain glanced at Marielle, who was toying with her food, not really eating much. "What does he know?"
"More than he realizes," she said. There was a strange expression on her face, a mixture of confusion, fascination, and a glimmer of something else. Revulsion?
Lafoutain stepped closer, his voice dropping into a near whisper. "Who is he? He said he came from Portland. We didn't have anyone in Portland." He looked at me. "Not anyone we could trust."
Marielle laughed, a hard bark of sound ripping out of her chest. I flinched at the sound, and Lafoutain grew more agitated. "What is going on?" he demanded. He blinked heavily, and his forehead was shiny with sweat.
I put my finger on Spiertz's name. "The Mason," I said. My hand drifted on its own accord across the map. Ulrich Husserl. "The Scryer." R. A. Kircherus. "The Thaumaturge." And three makes seven. Seven Architects.
But my hand kept moving, sliding across the page until it landed on Lafoutain's name. "The Sch-"
Lafoutain stepped forward and slapped my hand away from the map. He threw a nervous glance at the kitchen. "Enough," he hissed.
The Scholar. The whirlpool broke, scattering like snow in the mind.
Each of the nine has a distinct title, Cristobel's voice echoed in the fading spray of snow.
"There are nine," I said, staring at Lafoutain. "Not seven." The Chorus darted around the implications of the number nine. The rank was organized on the mystic resonance of sevens and threes. Seven ranks, seven sub-degrees. The higher ranks contained three times seven members. A third of the Preceptors were Architects. Threes and sevens. Nine was the cube of three, but it was an anomaly in the structure. It didn't seem to fit.
And Lafoutain wasn't a Preceptor. He was a rank below. A Protector of the Archives. But he was the Scholar. I knew it as concretely as I did the other names. I knew it because Philippe had known it, and that made it true.
"Your father named nine men as Architects," I said to Marielle. "Not the traditional seven. He built his own secret within the secrets." I indicated the map. "Visionary, Mason, Hermit, Scryer, Navigator, Crusader, and Thaumaturge. Those are the seven. But Philippe had two more." I looked at Lafoutain. "The Scholar. And the Shepherd. Who weren't Preceptors."
Lafoutain made a shushing motion with his hands. "Okay, okay. I hear you. Now shut up about it." He glanced toward the kitchen again. He was sweating clearly now. "They don't know." He glared at me. "No one knows."
"Except the three of us," Marielle said. I tried to get a read on her as something in her voice had made the Chorus shiver, but her expression was unreadable. She hadn't known, the Chorus hinted, not until you just told her. She didn't know about either of them.
But why did that matter? I asked the spirits in my head.
"Let's keep it that way." Lafoutain raised his eyes toward Heaven. "Let's keep it a secret. For now. Okay?" He swiped a hand across his forehead and when it came away wet, he looked at it dumbly as if he didn't know how that moisture had gotten there. He wobbled for a second, leaning forward against the table. "That panang." His mouth crooked into an awkward smile. "Spicier than I thought."
I pulled a chair closer and he sat down. His face was red, and his breath rasped in his throat. "Maybe some water," he said, tugging on Marielle's arm. "Could you get me a glass of water?"
She nodded, her face clearly showing concern now, and went to fetch the Bear a glass.
As soon as she was gone, Lafoutain grabbed my arm and pulled me close, his face next to mine. His eyes were clouded with pain, but they cleared for a second, filling with violet light. "Quickly," he said. "There isn't time."
"It's just a curry-"
He shook his head, sweat flying off his brow. "No, it's something else. Damnit. Undone by my stomach." A spasm of pain ran through his frame, and I felt his hand tremble on my arm. "Those little pricks betrayed us. I knew they were gone too long." He shivered. "They dosed the food, probably all of it."
I stared at the plates on the table. How much had I eaten? Had Marielle?
Lafoutain leaned heavily against me, his hand moving to my shirt so that he could bring my head close to his mouth. "The Shepherd," he hissed. "Do you know who the Shepherd is?"
The memory was there. Now that I knew what to look for. The burned face upraised, the eyes closed. The skull showing through the ravaged flesh. My hands touching his eyes and lips, delivering the benediction of rank. After the fall. So recently elevated, a
s if, in having survived being burned, he had proven himself capable.
I nodded. "I do."
"Does she?"
I shook my head. "I don't think so." The Chorus crawled under my skin. "She didn't know about you."
A crash of falling china came from the kitchen, followed by shouts. The Chorus flared into the peacock shield as they felt magick blossom in the other room. Instinctively, I moved toward the fight, toward Marielle, but Lafoutain held me tight.
"No man is an island," he whispered. "Not even Philippe." His grip faltered, and I nearly tore out of it, but he summoned strength from some reservoir and held me tight. "Do you trust her?"
I hesitated for a second, all this secrecy about the hidden Architects giving me a moment of pause. But only a moment. Speak what lies in your heart, wolf. Be true to me, and to yourself.
"Why shouldn't I?"
A spasm of pain wracked his face. "Don't be obtuse, Michael. Answer my question."
"Yes," I said. Committing myself. Making a choice. Be true.
He tried to nod his head, and only managed a slight tremor of his neck muscles. " 'It is more difficult to live with a woman without danger than to raise the dead to life.' Do you know who said that?" His voice was fading in and out, like the fluttering edge of foam on a wave, as his life ebbed. "Bernard of Clairvaux." He managed to tilt his head to the side enough to look up at me. The light glittering in his eyes gave his face some of its old humor back. "So very medieval of him, and yet so. . " The light faded, taking with it most of his remaining strength. His head fell forward again, and his voice was almost lost in his throat.". . daughters, not our sons that will. . Oh, my little chicken. I am so sorry. . "
I knelt beside him, so that he could look at me without having to lift his head. "I know who she is." Ex-lover of my old rival. The prize, as far as many of the Watchers were concerned. The woman whose heart I had broken. More than once. Daughter of the Hierarch.
He stared at me as long as he could, blinking through his pain. "I hope so," he murmured. "I truly do." A low moan started in his belly, and it occluded his throat. His grip on my hand loosened, and his shoulders slumped.
