by Rob Swigart
She had reached the bottom of the stairs when he stopped her. “Dr. Emmer, there’s a phrase here, near the end: ĝeštug muššatur. Do you know what that means? I’m sorry, of course you don’t,” he added immediately.
“Muššatur is the snake.”
“Mythical snake, yes, but this is what’s interesting: ĝeštug means ear, and for the Sumerians ‘ear’ meant wisdom, which comes of careful listening. You see?”
Her eyes were far away. “I do see, yes. Serpent Wisdom. Ophis Sophia is older than we thought. Much older.”
Constantine’s Summons
At just after 8:40 the apartment had lapsed into a Sunday morning calm. Lisa was upstairs. Usem was napping.
Steve was in the salon, waiting when his cellphone rang and the calm proved deceptive. Even before he could speak, Constantine started babbling. “Étienne, mon vieux, sorry I couldn’t call back before, but things here… well, never mind. Lisa Emmer must come.” His schoolboy French was serviceable, but, unlike his English, heavily accented.
Steve held the phone away from his ear. He thought Constantine was veering dangerously close to hysteria.
Constantine did not pause for replies. “Before you say anything, listen. I know, I know, no women allowed, the monasteries are very strict about that, but there’s something she must see, something I found in the archives of the Skiti of Saint Nektarios the Martyr.”
“What? This isn’t a good time, Constantine. We have a lot going on.”
“Yes, yes, but that awful American from Ophis Sophia’s coming back for me, I know it, and I don’t have much time. He warned me something bad would happen if I didn’t give them what they wanted, and as you know, I didn’t. He never said exactly what he would do, but I’m sure it won’t be good.” The monk laughed, a little wildly. “He didn’t like coming here, he said. He found it unpleasant, even distasteful. Imagine! They’ll know their location came from me and he’ll come back to kill me. Did I tell you he was dangerous? I could see a darkness in him, but what can I do? I have to face him. I don’t know, but it could be my end, so you have to hurry, get here ahead of him. What I found can’t wait! If he learns about it, I don’t want to think… So you see, you have to bring her.”
“What is it, exactly?”
“It’s a parchment called Miraculous Child. I discovered a blurry digital archive copy, not good but good enough, a text with a drawing, a woman and child, Madonna, perhaps, and something that scared me, a man with a knife, I’m sure of it.” He paused for breath.
“That’s interesting, Constantine, but we’re busy. Can you take a picture? Maybe we can check it out from here.”
“No, no, I can’t do that. They wouldn’t let me. Listen, there’s something else going on with this group, something big I can’t talk about this way, only in person. Come here, please. We can look at the parchment. A friend can get us into the archives for a short time, that’s all. I promise you Lisa must see it; she must touch it. Tomorrow night. Come to the monastery tomorrow night at eleven. Smuggle her in somehow, I’ll leave that up to you. We’ll hike over to the skiti together and I’ll tell you everything I know. The moon’s almost full, we’ll have light, but you’ll have to be off the mountain before dawn. No one must know. Please. I know she has to see it. I’m risking my life, here.”
When Lisa came downstairs, Steve told her about Constantine’s message.
“OK,” she said. “We’re going to Urfa, anyway. Athos is on the way.”
“Urfa? Miraculous Child? You want to find the original.”
“Urfa’s near Harran, home of Abraham. Ibrahim. If this document has the same title, and a drawing of the Patriarch, we have to go. Bruno changed his copy. Why? When we see the original, we’ll know. I bet you the background of the miniature is what we’ll find in Spain. And I bet you the background of the original is different.”
“I would never bet with you, Pythia.”
She laughed. “Good. We’ll find the original. Bruno saw the future. He warned us about many things, including climate change and terrorism. Now this. Three times, Steve: Bruno’s copy, Constantine’s parchment, and the original painting. We’ll know the connections when we find it. But I can tell you this, from Usem: Ophis Sophia is at least as old as the tablet.”
“All right, but what if the original no longer exists?”
“It exists. It’s in Edessa or Harran. We’ll find it. Three things, Steve, all connected. Once is accident, two is coincidence; three, someone’s trying to tell you something. We’ll stop at Athos. Then Turkey. Then Spain. We have two days. Blood moon, comet, equinox. The child will be born. Ophis Sophia: we have to get ahead of them.”
Father Colmillo Misses Mass
Sister Mary Lamiana went out to the Paradise Garden after Sunday Mass. The rain had slowed, but clouds rushed overhead in an ongoing tumble, spitting cold and irritating droplets into her face. She put her head down and hurried toward the entrance where she encountered Father Colmillo. “You don’t look well,” she observed, with meager sympathy.
His smile was wan and humorless. “Good morning.”
“Not very,” she replied. “Come.”
He fell into step beside her.
Once they were seated in her office, Sister Mary Lamiana growled, “Celia.”
His nod was dour.
“Her time is on her. She’ll deliver in a day, two at most.”
He nodded again.
“Not very talkative today,” she remarked.
He said nothing.
“After what happened yesterday you know your rituals can’t stop it. The child will come in its time, whatever we may say or do.”
“The demon’s in her,” he whispered fiercely. His agitation had not subsided, neither with the fall of night nor the coming of dawn. Yesterday, glass had rained down in the Chapter House, and this morning stigmata on his own hands and face were weeping blood. He had waited all morning for the flow to stop. “It possesses her child,” he added. The knowledge he had fallen into the sin of despair only increased his despair.
She changed the subject with a gesture of disdain. “You weren’t at mass this morning.”
“I had other… concerns.” He examined a cracked tile in the floor near his shoe. To his fevered eye the oval line of the crack was a fish: ichthys, spelling out in Greek Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. The martyr. He could drive out demons.
“Mmm, yes, other concerns. Well, the girl’s in the infirmary. She stares; her body shakes. She may have gone mad. But she won’t die, Father Colmillo, not even after what you did…”
“You saying it’s my fault?” he exclaimed, starting up from his chair.
“She’s just another lost girl, Father Colmillo, one among the many thousands of such girls who have lodged at San Akakio, given birth here. Many went on afterward to fulfilling lives.”
“Not all of them,” he mumbled.
“What?”
He looked up. “Many died here, died young, taken by the Evil One. The graveyard behind the west building is filled with them. Mothers, and their babies.”
“Quite so, and I fear Celia will become one of them, even should she survive the delivery.”
He slumped in his chair, hands dangling between his knees, head down. “I was trying to help.”
Sister barked a laugh. “Help! I doubt you were trying to help her, Father Colmillo. If anyone, it was yourself you were trying to help.”
“What do you say?” he demanded, rising to his feet.
Sister Mary Lamiana could see fear in his eyes. The black cross in both hands on the desk twitched upright, as though to ward off the priest’s wrath. For wrath it was: his momentary slump was over; anger had obliterated the fear in his eyes.
He said, “I will try again tonight.”
“It could kill her.”
“You cannot thwart me, Sister. Don’t try. Possession like this is contagious. Once the Devil seizes a girl he will move into the others at will. We must not allow this to happen. Sh
e must be cleansed, freed. I will drive the Evil One from her.”
She sniffed. “We saw yesterday how well that worked.”
“You also saw the power we face.”
“I saw no such thing. I saw the storm blow something, a stick of wood, perhaps, against a window and it broke. That’s what I saw. Nothing supernatural.”
He turned away. “If that’s what you believe, then you weren’t paying attention.” He began to pace her small office, two steps right, two steps left.
She pointed her cross at him. “She’s recovering from your… methods. Not that it matters, but she’s in no condition to endure such treatment so soon. You could have injured her.”
“But I didn’t.” He gripped the edge of her desk in both hands and leaned over the nun, his face a frozen mask. His wounds were seeping blood again, drawing red lines down his forehead and cheeks. “The girl must, she will be exorcised. I will do it, with or without you. In the infirmary if necessary.”
Sister Mary saw then how deadly serious he was and thought that something else lay beneath his zeal. Somehow this was personal for him. He had never shown such intensity toward a girl before. Indeed, he was normally quite indifferent to their plight, preaching sin, counseling obedience. Something about this particular girl compelled him.
He’s become a zealot, Sister Mary Lamiana thought. He’s finally become serious about his duties. Her own disciplinary rigor was well established at San Akakio. Now that he had finally become like her, she had no reason to argue with him.
She dropped her crucifix to the end of its chain and lowered her clasped hands to the desk’s dark polished wood. Her gaze lingered on the priest’s pale face, taking in the weeping wounds, the twisted mouth, the fathomless irises floating in milky whites. He wears a crown of thorns, she thought. He’s a soldier, submitting himself to the demands of his faith and bearing his suffering with fortitude.
He is, if not insane, very close to it.
“You can see her when she’s recovered,” she suggested softly. “A day, perhaps two. No more. She’ll give birth, Father. It’s the way of things.”
There was a kind of pocket in her folded hands between the thumbs, a funnel of darkness. She shivered with foreboding. Would she, too, succumb to compassion? A weakness!
“It will not be good to wait, Sister. Not good at all.”
“She’s a sinner, yes, Father Colmillo, but we can’t just let her die. It would be… unseemly.”
Father Colmillo was aghast at her hypocrisy. Sister Mary Lamiana was concerned about appearances!
The nun didn’t notice, and continued, “She’s recovering in the infirmary. Sister Rafael tells me she will be able to go back to her room tomorrow.” She looked up. “I’ll have her brought to the Chapter House as soon as possible once that happens. I’ll have her brought, and when I do, I will, as yesterday, bear witness, though I believe it is pointless. I sense that once the child is born we will learn the source of her sin, and that might help you exorcise her. For now, I fear, Father Colmillo, that you are confusing natural events with the hand of God.”
“Natural events are the hand of God, Sister. They are the Lord’s ways of speaking to those of us with mortal ears. Don’t ever forget that!”
His eyes were wide and unblinking. He lowered his voice. “I will drive out the demon tomorrow, and you may be certain I won’t stop until I have sent the demon back to hell.”
The Holy Mountain
Late in the afternoon a helicopter touched down on the empty waters off the coast of the Autonomous State. The blades flattened and slowed to a stop. Lisa, Steve, and Alain climbed onto the pontoons, clinging to the struts. The Aegean undulated gently.
Alain detached a Zodiac just large enough to hold the three of them and they paddled toward shore. The helicopter lifted into the sky behind them, banked away to the southwest, and disappeared. The sea was empty. They passed into the shadow of the cliffs and a quarter of an hour later pulled the boat up onto the rocks at the foot of the slope. By then night was coming on.
Alain secured the Zodiac and sat with his back against a boulder. “See you when you get back.”
“Before dawn,” Steve said.
The older man pulled his watch cap down over his eyes with a grunt, already halfway to sleep.
Steve started up a narrow ravine filled with scrub. Though the slope wasn’t yet steep, and a nearly full moon was beginning to bathe everything in silvery light, they had to struggle through the bushes and progress was slow.
The ravine played out and they started a mad scramble up the slope. The flinty smell of dry soil rising around them blended into a complex bouquet of herbs, wood, and small, darting life. Loose soil slid from under their boots, they scraped their knees on the nearly vertical surface, and dust tickled their noses.
After half hour Lisa gasped, “How much farther?”
Steve checked his GPS. “A little over a hundred meters. We can take a break; it’s only ten thirty.”
“Good.”
She leaned back against the slope and up at the star-freckled sky. The absence of ground light enhanced the view and she took in a deep breath. Suddenly she pointed low to the left of the moon. “Look!” she cried. “Bright enough to see even in the moonlight. Near the horizon a little to the north”
“The comet in Boötes!” His voice was hushed. “Like an exclamation mark near Arcturus, yes, I see it. What’s the name again?”
“Lamaštu. A demon.”
“Mmm.”
“Look’s blue,” she murmured. “And Wednesday will be a Blood Moon.”
“Blue means carbon monoxide.”
“Thank you, Dr. Viginaire.”
They watched the comet.
After a time he checked his watch and stood. “Time to go.”
This final climb into the unknown was exhilarating. Lisa was one of the few women to set foot on Mount Athos in over a millennium. The only one she could name was Maryse Choisy, a French journalist who, disguised as a man, spent a month living among the monks. That was nearly a century ago.
Except for those monks who sought a few fleeting, shameful hours of female companionship outside the borders of the Autonomous State, this all-male society was uncorrupted.
The ground was so dark and the sky so thick with stars, Lisa wondered if the Holy Mountain had electricity at all. Of course, it must since Constantine spent his days in front of a computer. The monasteries and smaller skitis were widely scattered, isolated islands of human light and life in an ocean of darkness.
At the top Steve lifted his head above the edge and stared across a plaza at the enormous church, its interior glowing through stained glass. Lisa took his hand and they waited in silence.
Someone coughed nearby. “Lisa? Lisa Emmer?”
They pulled themselves over the edge. Constantine, a darker shadow under a pine tree nearby, stepped into the moonlight. “I’m glad you made it.” The flat rim of his hat cast a curved shadow onto the glistening bun at the back of his head. A dark beard hid most of his face but his forehead and eyes gleamed. He spoke pure American, but there was a ragged edge to his voice. This was a man under intense pressure.
She recognized his fear: Lex Treadwell. More than twenty-four hours had passed since they saw the American at Alamut, plenty of time for his return.
“Any helicopters today?” she asked.
Constantine tilted his head with a frown. “Father Dimitri said he heard one this afternoon down below.”
“Ours.”
“We should move. It’s an hour’s walk there and an hour back, which gives us a couple of hours with Saint Nektarios. Here, slip these on, just in case we meet someone.” He handed them black robes and hats.
At that moment, a car roared into the plaza and skidded to a stop in front of the church. Steve yanked the monk back under the pine.
They couldn’t see inside the vehicle. The moon overhead cast a silver sheen along its top and constricted the shadow under the pine to a tight cir
cle, crowding them against the trunk. “Treadwell?” Constantine whispered.
“Can’t see; probably,” Lisa answered.
Steve trained a small pair of night glasses on the car. “Two, men,” he whispered. “Worry beads hanging from the mirror; it’s a taxi. The passenger isn’t moving.”
“He’s not waiting for us,” Lisa said. “They couldn’t know we were coming.”
“He’s here for me!” Constantine’s voice shook. “Saint Nektarios is waiting. Well, not Nektarios himself, but Brother Basil. We have to go. What should we do?”
“Climb down onto the slope and work our way around,” Steve suggested. “Come up next to the last building. That’s the path out, right?”
“Y-yes,” the monk faltered. “But I’m afraid…”
“Don’t be.”
“I’m afraid I’m too heavy.” Rapid breathing fluttered his nervous laugh. “No one goes down the cliff. If they do, they don’t come back.”
“We just climbed it,” Lisa said. “You can do it.”
The passenger got out of the car and stared in their direction. “It’s Treadwell,” Lisa confirmed. They could feel his eyes on them, but without thermal imaging he would see only darkness.
He leaned down to talk to the driver and closed the car door. After another quick look around the plaza, he vanished into the alley beside the church, leaving the car dark and silent.
“He’s going to the computer room,” Constantine said. “It’s the only place he knows.”
“At this hour?” Steve asked.
“The markets never sleep.”
“Come on, then.” Steve slipped over the edge of the cliff. Lisa waited for Constantine to follow, but he was reluctant, so she gently pushed him down the slope toward Steve, who caught him.
They scrambled around the slope just under the edge at the far side. Steve looked over the lip at the car. “Facing away from us. Come on.”
They walked single file along a narrow path beside a large workshop. In the woods behind the town Constantine’s breathing slowed. “There’s something about those people I didn’t like from the beginning,” he said. “Something unchristian about them, if you know what I mean. No charity. No love.”
