by Mark Teppo
My hand had been fidgeting with the pen, and the touch of her fingers stilled that energy in my hand. I had been doodling on the page. Tiny strokes, over and over, blackening a tiny spot in the margins. A curve, two lines, a third perpendicular to the two. A curve, two lines, a third. Over and over again.
The shape of a cup, like the Ace of Cups.
The glowing words compressed into an ornate key that dove into the shadows of my skull, finding a lock. The one that, apparently, controlled my tongue. Almost without realizing I was doing so, I started telling her the truth.
"Philippe. . bequeathed me certain gifts when he died. The key, his ring, and his deck of cards. Those were the physical artifacts I got, but there was something else too."
I set the pen down and moved away from the table. I was full of nervous energy all of a sudden, and I wanted to move about. To not be caged. It was like going to confessional and finding the small box too crowded, too full of your guilt and need to talk to someone about what you had done. I had had a long time to live with my guilt, and until now, I had never been overtaken with such a need to talk about it. And yet, in this room with Vivienne, I wanted to tell her what had happened. I wanted someone to know my side of the story, before it got lost in the noise of the Chorus.
"He gave me the symbols of his office because I was an outsider, because I had no stake in the outcome of the contest for the Crown. I didn't care who wore it next; it wasn't my fight. But I was uniquely positioned to be an. . " I searched for the right word, falling through a sudden tear in the nebulous veil of the Chorus. Falling and finding myself in a place without shadows, a place of clarity.". . arbiter, I suppose, an arbiter of the ultimate selection for leadership of the organization."
I started pacing, my legs working off some of the energy coursing through my nervous system. I had been unlocked, and Vivienne's key had unleashed a torrent of words and thoughts. The Ace of Cups, spilling its water. The flood of life, unrestrained. I didn't want to think about where this desire was coming from; I wanted to let it all out.
"Philippe knew there were members of the organization who were actively plotting to remove him. But as long as he remained bound to his office, they were forced to skulk in the shadows and attack his power in an indirect way. When their effort to create a new Hierarch failed, they fell back to a secondary position: mortally wounding him by wounding the Land. His strength reduced, they could more readily best him physically. If it came to that."
"Did it?"
I shook my head. "No, he beat them to it. He died before they could take his Crown."
"Giving it to you."
"Yes."
"And it isn't a physical gift."
"No. It is his. . "
"Essence?"
"Essentially."
"And what are you supposed to do with it?"
I stopped pacing. "I don't know."
She nodded. "No wonder Marielle brought you to see me."
"Excuse me?"
She closed her eyes for a moment, and the room felt darker. All the exhaustion of the day came racing back to the forefront of my brain. On the desk, the tiny drawing I had scribbled no longer looked like anything important. It didn't look like the Ace of Cups at all, and a tiny part of me wondered what I had been thinking.
Something had definitely changed in the last moment, but I didn't feel like I had been conned, or that the words had been taken against my will. Quite the opposite. It had felt liberating to tell her, and now that it was done, I was glad to be rid of the weight. But whatever glamour had been on me, it was gone now. In the back of my throat, something clicked shut and my tongue felt heavy in my mouth again.
She sat down at the desk and laid her hand on what I had thought was the mouse pad beside the keyboard. It glowed beneath her fingers, a green light outlining her hand.
"What rank did you achieve when you were actively part of the fraternity, M. Markham?"
"Please, Michael." We might as well be on first name basis, after that confession I had unleashed. My tongue still felt a bit wooden. "I made Journeyman."
"Seventh Degree?"
I flushed. "No. Only Third."
"And how long have you been gone?" The computer came out of sleep mode, and the light from the LCD screen illuminated her face, highlighting the shadows under her eyes. "Did you study during that time?"
"Five, no, six years now. I've been teaching myself since then."
"Ah. Venefice."
"I wish you wouldn't put it that way."
"You were-are-an unrecognized and self-taught magus, who was given access to the teachings of the society and who, while retaining those teachings, no longer answers to the hierarchy to which you once swore an oath. I don't know; what name would you give to that sort of person if not 'traitor'?"
"How about 'free radical'?"
"All right, solute frater." With just a touch of sarcasm in her voice. "Let me ask you a few questions."
She moved her hand across the pad, mousing with her fingers, and the flat screen on the wall came to life, displaying a line drawing of a human figure, but overlaid with the ten spheres of the Tree of the Sephiroth. The sphere at the top of the tree floated over the figure's head. This was Kether, the holy crown at the apex, and it wasn't by accident that it appeared to be a halo. Much like the representation of saints in medieval art and iconography.
Like the saints in the watercolors and stained glass at the Chapel of Glass.
"What's this?" I asked.
"You tell me," she said. "What does it look like to you?"
"It looks like an overlay of the Sephiroth on an anatomical drawing. Like da Vinci's Vitruvian Man without all the geometric distractions. It looks modern though, like some aspiring occult student did some sketching and didn't bother with doodling a bunch of commentary around the margins."
"Very likely," she acknowledged. "But what does it represent?"
"It's the symbolic representation of mankind. Rather, humanity, if you prefer a more gender-neutral word. We stand upon the globe of Malkuth, and the forces and energies of the Sephirotic realm travel up through our bodies so that we may attain the enlightened awareness of Kether."
She selected an icon on her screen and the picture changed. The figure was no longer standing with its arms outstretched over the Sephiroth of Geburah and Chesed — Strength and Mercy. Now, the figure was in the traditional crucifixion pose, and resting in his open and upturned palms were the globes of Binah and Chokhmah, the spheres of Understanding and Wisdom. His head was bent at an angle, and the sphere of Kether was a solar disk pressing down on his neck, like a vast weight.
A dim line went through the man's neck, separating the head from the body. It was the line on the tree between Binah and Chokhmah, and the center of the line corresponded to the base of the man's throat. Right where Daath lay, the entrance to the nightside of the tree. The Abyss where the Qliphoth dwelt, where they waited for the innocent to call them forth.
"And this one?" she asked.
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat, a sympathetic memory of the night in the Pacific Northwest woods where I was initiated into magick and touched the Tree of the Sephiroth. I made the mistake of touching that dark spot between Binah and Chokhmah. "The ascended martyr," I croaked, as I turned away from the screen. "The one who knows he cannot sustain the weight of the tree. But he bears it anyway, and so it crushes him."
I closed my eyes, but the image was still there, and the similarities between Vivienne's picture and the enormous Christ figure in the Chapel of Glass were readily apparent. Head bowed by the weight of the crown, no longer supported by Strength and Mercy, but holding Understanding and Wisdom in his bloodied hands. This was the magus who Knew, who had Seen beyond the veil and understood the nature of the Divine. This was the man who died, knowing who he was and what he would become. I had thought the figure had been sleeping, but there wasn't much distinction between sleep and understanding.
Philippe Emonet understood. Hierarch
of the Watchers, Architect of Architects. I am the Silent Guardian Who Waits. In that down-turned face, in the serenity that wreathed the slumbering visage, was peace.
When I had killed him, when I reached into his heart and broke his soul, he had smiled.
"I am the daughter of the Scholar," Vivienne said after a moment. She spoke quietly enough that I had to come away from my own thoughts to hear her. "I am the chief librarian of the Archives. I have devoted my life to the illumination of knowledge. I don't like questions that appear to have no answer." She waited for me to look at her before she continued. "Like: Why did the Hierarch choose to give an untested, untrained, and uninformed magus-a dumb courier, at best-the symbols of his office? So that you could arbitrate?" She shook her head. "I don't think so."
Peace is not for us, Michael. Responsibility yes, but not peace.
Something popped in my chest. A reaction to those words, to this question. "It's a perfectly valid answer," I snapped. "You just don't care for the inference that it carries. Philippe wanted someone untested, untrained, and uninformed in the ways of the organization because that would be someone he could trust. Not the rest of you.
"I am supposed to seem like a clueless monkey sent to deliver a message, and fortunately enough, I am pretty good at that sort of charade. But I'm not, and while this game of rubbing my nose in my lack of formal training might be fun for you, it's the very sort of self-righteous and sanctimonious attitude that has poisoned-"
She stiffened. "I'm not-" With an angry swipe of her hand, she blanked the screen. "You think this is about power? About me not being happy that after a lifetime of service to these Archives I'm supposed to eagerly welcome some rogue magus into my sanctum? 'Oh, sure, come in. No, I don't mind that you've thieved two of our more prized artifacts from us. No, not at all. I don't mind that you're a fucking clueless idiot who has no idea what is going on. It's okay. I'll wipe your ass and hold your hand.' "
Her vehemence surprised me, and I fumbled for a minute, trying to figure out where this came from. Okay, so maybe I had come on a little strong, but I was getting tired of everyone wondering how in the world I had managed to get the keys to the kingdom. "It's not like that," I said. "I didn't ask for-"
"Oh, with all due respect, go fuck yourself." She put her hands in her lap and sat rigid. Her eyes were moist, and she took several slow, deep breaths.
This isn't about you, Lafoutain murmured, and Nicols reminded me of the pain one takes on when death comes close to you.
"I'm sorry," I said after a time with a voice that wasn't entirely mine.
"For what?" she asked sharply. "You killed her father, not mine."
I took a deep breath and pushed the Chorus away so that I could speak without their influence. "I'm sorry," I said, "that your father isn't here to tell you himself how much he loves you, little chicken. I'm sorry that, in this instance, I am just a dumb courier, because it is no substitute for the real thing."
A tear slid down her right cheek. When it fell onto her clasped hands, she became aware of it, and she came out of her mental trance. She sniffed once, and pushed the next tear back with a knuckle. " 'Little chicken.' " She shook her head. "He hasn't called me that in. . a very long time."
Her hands fell back into her lap and she stared out the window. "My father and mother haven't spoken since I was seven. The last time I saw her was the summer of my twelfth year, when I visited her in Tromso. I didn't want to come back to Paris. My father had to send someone to come get me, and I hated him for a very long time for that. I didn't want to be his daughter; I didn't want to serve. I wanted to be my own person, to not be anyone's 'little' anything."
When she paused, it would have been polite for me to ask what changed, what happened to make her feel differently about her father, but I couldn't find the words. My chest was tight, and the Chorus was a heavy weight, pulling me down.
"It doesn't matter what we think, does it?" she said. "We can't control how other people love us, can we? Eventually we recognize that they do."
With some awkwardness, I became fascinated with my shoes. And the carpet.
"Goddess help you, Michael Markham," she said after an excruciating pause, "if you are that alone."
I chuckled. "Far from it." To lend the statement some weight, I met her gaze and dared her to call me a liar.
She looked away. "Of course. How silly of me."
Which only cut worse. To be so summarily dismissed.
She smoothed her hair, even though not a strand was out of place, and swiped her hand across the pad once more. The computer came out of sleep, and she found another icon. "Is this the key you lost to Protector Briande?" she asked as another image came up on the flat screen.
We were done sharing, it seemed. Back to the business at hand.
On the slowly rotating image, the bow was intact, and I examined the intricate carving and scrollwork. "Yes, though the top had been smashed." It appeared to be a three-dimensional combination of several pentacles.
"Before or after you received it?"
"Before."
"By Philippe?"
I searched my memory, and the Chorus swirled around my effort, both aiding and confusing my attempt. Philippe's spirit remained elusive, unwilling to come forward and offer a helpful hint. "I don't know." I wandered over to the screen to get a better look. "Can you freeze it?"
She did, and I peered at the symbols. "What are they?"
"We're not sure, and these are, at any rate, only a best guess. But we believe they are binding talismans."
"And the blade is wrong," I pointed out. "The teeth were. . elusive. You couldn't focus on them. They kept changing."
"I know. It's not possible to show that readily in this program," she said. She was actually warming to me a little now, almost as if we had gotten past that awkward dance of verifying each other's credentials and were now talking as peers. Or almost peers. "Even though the program used to draw this is a modified auto-CAD, it doesn't lend itself well to animated loops."
"A loop? Not an endlessly random sequence?"
"Perhaps," she shrugged. "I've never actually seen the key. This graphic is an amalgamation of several sources."
"What does it open?"
She selected another image from the computer and sent it to the remote screen. A still photograph of a castle on a rocky promontory. A rounded dome with a tiny gold figure mounted on the top stood at the peak of the hill. Around the base of the cliffs was an endless expanse of blue water. "Do you know this place?"
"Mont-Saint-Michel," I replied. "On the coast."
"Have you been there? Recently?"
"No," I said, and then: "Yes." A flash of memory. The green grass of a cloistered space, surrounded by the peaked arches of a sanctuary. Then: vaulted ceilings with exposed ribs; an underground space, barely a niche, hidden behind one of the oldest walls. The floor before the small stone altar was covered in script, radial arms spiraling outward from a central starburst. Closer to the altar, there was a smaller starburst of script, and when I put the key in the center of the smaller image, all of the script-both sections-flashed white and violet, a series of wards coming to life.
The memory fled quickly as I tried to anchor it, and all I was left with was a smoldering sensation in my palm as if I had briefly held a warm stone.
"Which is it?" Vivienne asked.
"I'm having trouble with my memory. It's not all. . linear, and-" I searched for a good way to describe what it was like to have memories of a time prior to my birth. How could I tell her without going into an extensive discussion about what the Chorus was and what I did with it?
You can't. So keep it simple. Tell her a version of the truth. Something you can believe.
"No," I said firmly. "I visited once, many years ago. But I haven't been recently. What's there?"
"One of the two artifacts necessary for the Coronation."
"Which one?" I asked, as if I knew what they both were.
"The Spear of Longinus."
The air fled from my lungs, and I mentally counted to ten as the pressure on my chest began to ease. The Chorus buzzed in my ears and my skin tingled with all the excitement normally reserved for the minute and a half before the first item went up for bid at a Sothby's antiquarian auction.
If the Spear was one part of the tools needed for the Coronation, what was the other? The answer floated in my head, an image almost teasingly offered by the Chorus-the tarot suits: Wand, Disk, Sword, and Cup-and I couldn't quite believe it.
I realized Philippe had given me his tarot deck, not just as a means to communicate with me, but also as a symbolic representation of the mystery of his office. If the Spear of Longinus mapped to the suit of swords, then what would map to the other suits? There was an obvious answer, when I thought about it, and while I couldn't quite believe, the Chorus simply countered with a simple question: Why wouldn't they have it? This was the archives of the La Societe Lumineuse, after all. If there was any place where such artifacts would reside, it would be here.
Which posed an interesting question.
The Chorus released their hold on my chest finally and I could draw air. "Why isn't the Spear here?" I asked.
Vivienne favored me with a withering look.
XX
While Vivienne and I had been talking, Marielle had been arranging transportation, anticipating the need for a vehicle of our own. Too keyed up by my conversation with Vivienne, I offered to drive, and the dashboard GPS directed me to the A13, heading toward Mont-Saint-Michel. Traffic was light at this time of night, and within a half-hour, I was far enough from Paris that the flow was barely a trickle, and most of it was heading back toward Paris.
Marielle was curled up in the back seat, my bunched up jacket a pillow beneath her head. I resisted the temptation to tilt the rear-view mirror enough so that I could keep an eye on her. I had enough on my mind already; I didn't need the extra distraction of watching her sleep. Of wondering what she was dreaming about.
One of two.
Vivienne said there were two artifacts necessary for the Coronation ceremony. While I had managed to eke out the identity of one-the Spear of Longinus-my gut told me the other one was the Grail. The Grail was stored at the Archives-it had to be-and, for no reason other than perhaps the danger of having two such artifacts in constant proximity to each other, the Watchers didn't store the Spear in the same location.
