by Rob Swigart
The first took a swallow and passed the jar to the next. In this way, the jars crossed the room. Men on the other end collected them and both lines marched back and disappeared.
All this time the drums continued, a slow, steady pulse without variation, ba-bump, ba-bump, like a beating heart.
Suddenly someone released an audible gulp. Two or three others followed, then a series of wild shouts from different spots around the room, and people sobbed. Gradually these sounds died away and a collective hush fell.
The silence extended indefinitely and even Lisa up on the gallery could feel the tension wind tighter.
A man emerged from the curtains, walked gravely down to the altar, and stepped in front of it. His tall, conical hat shimmered in the torchlight like scales. His sleeveless leather tunic showed off the finely defined muscles of his arms and chest. His short stature and slender frame were deceptive; this was a powerful man. His lifted arms commanded the attention of the multitude. He stood thus for long minutes in silence.
“Ibrahim,” Lisa breathed.
“He was expecting us,” Steven suggested in a whisper. “Be careful.”
Isaak glared at them and they fell silent once more.
Ibrahim’s voice rolled the length of the room like thunder. “Great Serpent!” he called, speaking in English, the current global language. “By the power of Heaven, be conjured!”
And the crowd responded in the same language, “By the power of Earth, be conjured!”
“By the power of the great gods, be conjured!” Ibrahim called.
“By the power of the gods of heaven and earth, be conjured!” the crowd responded.
“By the power of Heaven, be conjured!”
“By the power of Earth, be conjured!”
They repeated this exchange seven times by Lisa’s count. The effect was strangely archaic and compelling. She wished Usem were here to explain. What did this have to do with the Tablet of Destinies?
When the repetitions ended Ibrahim waited, and then, speaking calmly and without undue emphasis, he said, “Our time is upon us and we have much to do. Two days from now the Child will come into the world. The Divine Mother has already left for this event.”
A roar of approval rose from the crowd.
“She arrives in a few hours. She will be ready.”
Again, a roar.
“Today we celebrate the most momentous event in the history of Ǧeštug Muššatur, also called Ophis Sophia, Sapientia Serpentem, Le Serpent de Sagesse, and myriad other names under which generations have toiled in darkness and secrecy. Our organization has been nurtured and protected by emperors, tyrants, and priests; the Assyrians, the Parthians, the successors of Alexander the Great and the Byzantine kings that followed; and by the Maronites, by imams, Hindu priests, and many others, some who worship gods and others who do not. All for this day.”
This was greeted by enthusiastic approval. Ibrahim stood patiently until the noise stopped. “In a few days Mother Chaos returns. We shall at last take our places in a new world reborn. All is in readiness.”
He lowered his hands and stood quietly, looking down. The applause went on and on.
When it finally died away again, the curtains behind him parted, revealing a broad staircase. On the fourth step, visible to everyone in that enormous hall, stood a line of ten powerful men wearing the same wide white trousers as the audience. They held in their hands a stupendous snake that stretched from one end of the line to the other, five meters at least. It must have weighed over a hundred and fifty kilos.
“Reticulated python,” Steve murmured. “Native to Southeast Asia. What’s it doing here?”
“Ophis Sophia’s a snake cult,” Lisa answered.
The snake faced the crowd, and even from the gallery Lisa could look into its unblinking, indifferent, amber eyes.
The men descended the steps and offered the snake to the altar. Without hesitation it slid smoothly from their arms and doubled back and wound around itself, thick as a man’s thigh. Its back bore the same reticulated pattern as the crowd, the same pale white and amber coloring, the dark outlines, the coiling movement that seemed, from up here, to reflect ripples moving on water.
It took a long time for the entire length to ease onto the stone altar and stop moving.
The men returned to their positions on the stairway. They seemed deaf to the repeated roaring of the congregation. Perhaps, Lisa thought, they really were deaf. Nothing about this group would surprise her.
“This,” Ibrahim declaimed, one hand resting on the snake’s head, “is Ušumgal, attendant of Muššatur. She is a rare albino descendant of the First Serpent, the World-Crosser, the serpent that swam through the Indian Sea and up the Buranun in the far off days of the Tablet of Destinies. She came, so they said, to give our prophet Udnamekam the secrets of our faith, as attested in documents and paintings, including the painting called Miraculous Child, which you have all seen. Though the Tablet of Destinies is yet in other hands, we will possess it soon. Even now our Teacher is collecting it. This has been foretold, and it shall be so.”
He raised his hands to quell a rising murmur, equal parts anger and anguish. When silence returned, he continued, “This incarnation of Ušumgal has been with us over two decades. She has assisted in the Lesser Rites seven times, the most of any in our history.”
He paused to let that sink in.
“This day is a rare one. You have assembled here in secret over many weeks to bear witness. You have lived here underground as the snake does. I don’t have to tell you that the day after tomorrow, the spring equinox, will mark only the third time in all our history we perform the Greater Rite. The first time was in this very place almost four thousand years ago. The second time was in Jerusalem two thousand years ago. Now, as introduction to the third Greater Rite, Ušumgal will ascend one among us to the Second Mystery.” He gestured and the crowd let out a great roar, which grew even louder when a man detached from the crowd and climbed the steps to the dais.
He stood beside Ibrahim and the roaring slowly died away.
“Lex,” Steve murmured.
Lisa murmured assent. She had recognized him from the Alamut.
Ibrahim stepped back. Four men surrounded Lex. When they stepped back, he stood naked before the multitude.
One of the men took a curved knife and, with ceremonious solemnity, shaved Lex’s beard and head. When finished, he carried the hair away on a metal plate. He returned with a tray of pots, and with the same slow, deliberate care all four men anointed the naked man from the top of his head to the soles of his feet with oily paste.
Lex stood calm and expressionless.
The serpent looked out of amber eyes that held nothing human; they were without curiosity or hunger or hatred. Only a slow undulation of that great column of muscle inching toward the naked man suggested anything that might be called interest.
The methodical application was excruciatingly slow and the crowd grew restive, losing focus on the naked man, the high-hatted officiant standing quietly to one side, the immobile figures at the back. They began to shift from foot to foot, bend knees, stretch arms and shoulders, or stare up at the dark, blank ceiling, so rapt they might have been counting stars.
This restless movement disturbed the careful symmetry of the ranks, smearing their colors. Only Isaak, watching from his post on the gallery, was transfixed by the events below, and impervious to Lisa’s questioning touch.
She moved away and whispered to Steve. “Whatever they drank.”
“Clearly.”
Suddenly a man in the middle doubled over, retching violently, and his low moans spread like a contagion.
“They all look pretty sick,” she observed.
“Mmm. And whatever they’re smearing on Lex stinks all the way up here,” Steve said. “Myrrh, olive oil? Calamus root?”
“Mandragora, henbane?” she offered. “Anesthetic or hallucinogen. I’m not going to ask when you did all this drug research.”
> He looked askance, a smile playing around his mouth. “You told me Raimond had you drink something once, so I looked into it. Part of my job.”
Lex moved to the end of the altar opposite Ibrahim and stared into the eyes of the serpent.
The snake moved toward him, centimeter by centimeter. Time stopped, as did the restlessness of the crowd. All eyes were on Lex.
The python’s head slipped over the side of the altar and descended to the floor, followed by five meters of rippling muscle. It slithered along the base of the altar toward Lex. He gazed down at the amber eyes without expression. He watched it roll over his bare feet and begin to twine around his legs.
Coil by coil it wound up the man’s taut body. It covered his legs and captured his arms against his body. It coiled round and round up the torso until it was a thick column with a man’s head, expressionless and remote.
And then the human head was gone. Only the snake’s remained, orange eyes remote and indifferent as ever.
“Abraham,” Lisa breathed.
“Excuse me?”
“In the painting, Abraham’s staff, a coiled snake. This is it, a reenactment.”
And then she gasped, hand to her mouth, for the coils were visibly tightening even as the head remained motionless. The great muscles of that thick body were constricting the man inside, and the collective body of the congregation released a long sigh. Instead of dying away, the more tightly the coils constricted the more the sound increased.
“Human sacrifice?” Steve breathed. “An offering to appease an angry god? They are killing one of their own, after all.”
“Are you certain about that?” Lisa asked, eyes fixed on the spectacle.
“What?”
“Wait.”
No muffled cries of pain emerged from the coils, and if bones were snapping, the sound of their breaking was too feeble to be heard over the long, humming “Aaah.” The sound went on without break until the serpent, its business finished, suddenly dropped away and slid up the steps and out the back of the dais. Left behind was a heap of flesh and bone that had once been a man.
The sighing faded away.
The same four men came down to pick up the bundle of ruined flesh and with slow, funereal movements place it on the altar. With two at each end they stretched the twisted limbs, and laid out the naked body.
The light on the dais changed quality; an amber glow swelled from a hidden source. It overwhelmed the red-orange of the torches and bathed the bundle of broken bones in a pool of molten gold.
Ibrahim stepped to the front of the dais and raised his arms. “Behold this man who was called Iskander!”
“He is shattered on the stone. He is broken,” the congregation responded.
“Ušumgal has taken him. He is in the Divine Mother’s heart.”
“In the Divine Mother’s heart!”
“Iskander is dead,” Ibrahim intoned.
“He is dead,” they repeated.
“Where is he?”
“He is in Her heart.”
“And where is her heart?”
The responses came more quickly, gathering momentum. “In the beginning: Muššatur!”
“Her heart is the great sea,” Ibrahim shouted.
“The churning waters,” they answered.
“The tempest that destroys!”
“She is destruction. She is Death.”
“She is the One Who Gives Life, and the One Who Takes it! She is beyond both Good and Evil.” Ibrahim paused to look back at the body. The golden light grew more intense and the flesh, which had been pale and lifeless before, began to send out tiny, sharp flicks of light, mere photons that sparkled against the night sky of the ceiling, filling it with stars.
“Aaah,” the congregation breathed.
“Muššatur, the Serpent that destroys,” Ibrahim intoned in a calmer tone. “Is also the Serpent that creates, for out of her destruction must come the new creation, as a child comes forth in pain and blood.”
“Pain and blood,” they repeated.
The body that had been Lex Treadwell, called Iskander, sat up, dazed but whole, with eyes as empty as a newborn’s.
“Behold the Second Mystery!” Ibrahim shouted. He reached up to the man who had once been Lex. “This man, reborn from the coils of Ušumgal, is now Namtar, who is Fate, demon hand of Muššatur, slayer of the unrighteous, protector and champion of the First Mother, and Master of the Second Mystery, He Who Shall Lead the Faithful.”
Lex took the older man’s hand and stepped down from the altar.
“Damn,” Steve muttered beside her. “That is impressive.”
“He was protected by the anesthetic balm,” Lisa said. “The pain must have been excruciating. No one could withstand that without preparation.”
Steve shook his head. “No, no. He was dead.”
“Special effects. They’re just very good at production.”
The crowd below was flowing in sinuous patterns, their colors passing each other. “You see how they have become the python,” Lisa said. “How it coils endlessly around the room, an intricate ballet of cycles of life and death, good and evil. Like all such performances.” She turned back to him. “It’s show business.”
“Still, I’m impressed,” he said. “That was a real crowd-pleaser, always with the miracles, the bringing back from the dead trick. This was a show for the faithful. They’re after the child, so what was the point?”
Lisa’s answer stopped him. “It isn’t what they think it is.”
“What do you mean?”
Ibrahim and Namtar descended and walked among the congregation. Hands reached for the newly born, touching him. He looked at them with mild curiosity and not a little wonder. They disappeared out the back.
Her eyes on the disintegrating crowd, Lisa said. “They believe the child coming in two days to be some kind of god.”
He gave an exaggerated shudder. “I hope not.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not sure what the child is, but a god it is not.”
Isaak glared at them.
“Damn good show,” Steve told him cheerfully.
An answering smile flickered and went out. Five half-naked men appeared from below and surrounded Steve and Lisa.
“Hi, fellas,” Steve said. “Bonjour, mes amis. No?”
They gave no sign they heard or understood.
“They are deaf,” he muttered.
Isaak nodded assent and the men immediately seized their arms and bound them.
“Well, what about our good friend Nizam?” Steve asked, putting up no resistance. His question was thick with sarcasm.
Isaak shrugged. “Nizam al-Muriq is not your friend. But you know that already.”
“All right, so where are you taking us?” Steve persisted.
“Down there,” Isaak said, nodding toward the congregation. “As our Teacher instructed.”
With a brief look at their boss the five men returned downstairs and joined the line behind the altar.
Now that Namtar and Ibrahim were gone the congregation was milling around, the effects of their drink in full force. It appeared they had rediscovered chaos, and the hair rose again from Lisa’s nape. She closed her eyes, went inward. Today was the 19th of March. Circles of wavelets spread and collided, creating new ones glistening like scales on a snake’s back. Remember, she told herself. Remember. Raimond Foix saw this day.
Isaak waited for Lisa to open her eyes before saying, “In the old calendar, today, two days before the equinox, is a day of sacrifice.”
She looked back calmly. “Of course, we’re something to feed your mob down there.”
Steve frowned. “We?”
This time Isaak’s enduring smile contained nothing but the naked cruelty of a schoolyard bully. “Unfortunately for you,” he said, “not everyone can return from death.”
The Race Begins
A hot spike of anger suppressed the pain and propelled Nizam down to the street and into his waiting car. “Clinic,�
� he said through clenched teeth to the driver, the one Lisa had dubbed Wide.
The car sped to a private clinic in the fourth arrondissement where a Nigerian doctor loyal to Ophis Sophia treated his wound. “Not serious,” he declared. “Bullet missed vital organs and major blood vessels, but you lost some blood.” He indicated the soaked black robe lying on the medical waste bin beside his examination table. “Even if we give you a transfusion, you’ll need to rest for a week at least.”
“No time.”
The doctor frowned disapproval. “Very well, but you still need a transfusion.”
An hour later Nizam was sitting stiffly in the back of the car speeding through late afternoon traffic. The only remaining signs of Frédo’s bullet were the taut tight creases in the skin at his temples.
At Alamut men were finishing the last touchups of the newly plastered bullet holes. New computers were installed near the entrance and the thick-necked man was back on duty, watching the screens. He jumped to his feet when Nizam entered, followed by his driver. “Are you all right, sir?” the guard asked.
Nizam waved off the question. “Summon the others.”
A dozen men, including Wide’s two cohorts Tall and Lean were soon gathered in the foyer. Rumors of an attempted assassination on the Teacher had been flying and most were uneasy. Some heard he was dead, others that he had only been wounded, perhaps grievously. Their relief was great when he strode into the room as if nothing had happened. The rumors were wrong.
“I thank you for your good work here,” he said gruffly. “Alamut is nearly back to normal and we are once more on schedule.”
They murmured their appreciation at these uncharacteristic words of support.
He continued, “Divine Mother has arrived in Spain. The man once called Iskander successfully ascended to the Second Mystery and is reborn as Namtar. He and Ibrahim are on their way to join Her. This leaves us little more than a day to meet in Oviedo and uncover the new Mother’s exact location. We must secure this Child the minute she is born.
