Mad Gods - Predatory Ethics: Book I

by Athanasios

  A single arch spanned a stairway, leading Kosta through to the Kastro, castle. He followed a downhill course from the entrance, continuing past the Despot’s Chapel of Hagia Sophia. He didn’t enter the small doorway, inset in the center of the triple-arched, red roof-tiled portico. A church wasn’t the place to look for a secular, humanist philosopher.

  He headed down the path again and chose the right fork, coming upon the Palataki, little palace. This was where Plethon’s home would’ve been, considering his place in the imperial structure and importance to late Byzantine culture. It was at the Palataki that he taught the last academy of Greek philosophy. Future patriarchs of Kostadinoupoli, cardinals of Rome, despots, lords, dukes and emperors, had lived the last blossom of the ancients’ thoughts, beliefs and mysteries.

  To the right of the entrance, Kosta could see Sparti in the Evrota Valley. The city was so high, it appeared to be a tan smudge on the darkening fields surrounding it. Roads led away to Tripolis, and to the left kiparisia, cypress trees, were tiny in the valley floor. He walked along the ruined walls and, in the far left corner of the little palace, he saw a wily old figure. Tiny eyes glinted in the darkness, indicating gleeful wit and cynicism. A clever smirk curled the man’s thin lips as he asked, “Do you accept Xos as your savior and redeemer?”

  “Yes,” Kosta replied, without a second thought.

  “Fool. I thought the Truth would know better.” He laughed a short snicker motioning for Kosta to beware. He quickly turned to see the last Templar, who had followed him from Sparti. He rushed at him with enough momentum to send them both over the edge of the Palataki. He was moving very quickly, and not wanting to impede him, Kosta stepped out of his way. He didn’t go over the edge, but ran into one of the walls with a sickening crunch of his face. Kosta pushed him over the edge, the limp body hitting the cliff six times on its descent.

  Plethon looked at the body intently and added, “It was actually a mercy that you showed him. He would’ve died painfully from hitting the wall with his face.”

  “He had it coming,” Kosta answered.

  “Well, considering your first response, as well as your handling of that pitiful fellow, you’re not as imbecilic as your ancestors.” He smiled appreciatively.

  “Thank you, I think.” Kosta was surprised at the familiarity of this specter. He was used to medieval finery, not the familiarity, the flippancy, this little man showed. He was very little, barely five feet tall, and wore the fur-lined, plain robes one would expect of a country noble. On his head was the brimmed, conical hat of Byzantine gentry, though it didn’t quite fit.

  “Nobody calls me the Truth. Who are you? You’re certainly not the old teacher.”

  “Oh, those clever, clever Greeks.” The smile, cleaving his face, was malignant, a gash that looked as though it would explode in a torrent of gore. He wasn’t pleased to be exposed; the grin belied any compliments that slithered past his tongue. His stare punctured Kosta’s imagination, as he saw this little man rending him limb from limb, ripping his skin from his body. He shook off the vision, taking a step backward as it slithered forward.

  “I’m Old Nick and I’ve been watching you for quite some time.” He saw Kosta’s eyes widen in alarm. He pressed on emotions to exact his deepest fears, conjuring up perfect apparitions. He saw all of his family suffering, as nightmares come to life, carving off pounds of flesh and flaying skins off their writhing forms. This impostor didn’t relent as Kosta staggered from his molested senses. He jumped away from imagined things, made real all about him, however, the barrage of visions came too fast. None ever exacted a deep enough horror from him. They were locked in a desperate bid to overwhelm, which nearly succeeded.

  “You’re not He,” Kosta said between gasps, recovering his self-control. “What would Satan be doing in Mystra? You don’t lie well enough, and boast far too easily.”

  He continued to deride the evil spirit. All the while, he was tracing shapes into the night, which began to glow in the gathering dark. The spirit bared his teeth and lunged forward unsuccessfully. Something held him to the ground. The shapes, which Kosta had woven, dropped at his feet, clung about him and rooted him to the ground.

  “What have you done with Plethon?” Kosta asked.

  “He’s safe,” the imp answered defiantly.

  “That’s not what I asked.” Kosta turned to the far corner of the ruined Palataki, where the little man had first appeared. There, he saw a pile of rock, stacked, instead of fallen from the surrounding walls. He walked to the pile and chanced a peek at the writhing little man, tugging at his feet in an attempt to free himself.

  “Stop it,” Kosta commanded, gesturing for the binding roots of light to intensify, burning the man’s exposed, cleaving fingers. He growled in agony, but no burns showed on the hands he now clutched to his chest.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing!” he wailed. “Don’t let him out!”

  Kosta paid him no heed and stopped before the unnatural pile of stone. Between chunks of the rock, he saw a blue light, trying to escape. After shifting a few stones, he was blinded by a brilliance, which he grasped.

  This was Plethon. The other had merely dressed in the flesh of old philosopher. Clutching the light, Kosta walked to the hysterical, thrashing impostor, pushing the light into his face and rubbing it in. The resulting guttural screech and ferocious growl drove Kosta to his knees.

  A light touch brought him to. “Get up.” A gentle insistence revived him enough to stand. The same little man looked at him. The malevolent, vulpine glint had vanished from his eyes, replaced with boundless understanding. He looked at Kosta in the same way that a supremely efficient public servant would an eager citizen. He was there to answer any questions and proffer any help.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said. “Are you alright?”

  “Yes,” Kosta replied. “I’ll be fine.

  “How did you know what to do? How did you…” He replicated the motions Kosta had used to bind the demon.

  “I’ve done more reading than any other Truth,” he answered.

  “More than all combined.” The old teacher nodded, impressed. He walked to the edge of the rock pile, which had so recently been his cell. “Thank you. I’m indebted to you. I have been imprisoned since Mystra was abandoned to Turks, Venetians and traitors.”

  “How? Why?” Kosta tried to be more precise. “How did the demon take your form and why?”

  “When bitter Dimitri, the emperor’s brother, handed Mystra to Mehmet, we lost all protection. God completely abandoned the Byzantines.” The old man felt bitterness choke in his throat. He stared out on the Evrota Valley, with the Taïyetos Spire ranging and enclosing it, looking silently at Sparti’s lights.

  “It’s still there. After it’s ancient stones were used to build Mystra, I thought that Sparti would never rise again. How ironic that we look at its bright lights from this darkness.” He turned and smiled at the Paleologan eyes.

  “Without protection, we were all in danger,” he continued. “Those dark ones used me to deceive any who came looking for guidance. They lured them into their dark designs.”

  “How did they manage it?” Kosta asked.

  “It wasn’t through conjuring or magic,” he said, ashamed. “They asked why the Catholics should rule the world since they let Byzantines die.” He shook his head. “It all sounded so right. Why should we let them win? Those upstarts didn’t deserve our place.” He smiled bitterly. Both stood silently now, watching the Evrota Valley, completely shrouded in the dark of night. Stars, Sparti and Neo Mystra’s lights, shone without horizon, enveloping them in a black starry cover.

  Under his breath, Kosta asked what Plethon wanted him to do. He was breathless, fearing the reply.

  “We take things so literally,” Plathon said. “There is no task like the one in Kostadinoupoli. There are no souls to be given peace. I only wanted to tell you where to go to satiate your thirst for knowledge. Find Ptolemy’s Library of Alexandria. It’s a wo
nder beyond any description.” He went on, “Nothing’s been lost; it’s all still there!”

  “Kostadino said that you wanted to unite all churches. This is what you waited centuries to say?” Kosta was perplexed.

  “Yes. It is what you wouldn’t hear from anyone else. You were led to this moment - to this place.”

  “The Truth’s duties will be complete when the emperor’s released. Then, I can embark on whatever life I choose.”

  “Yes.” He answered instantly, watching intently, because he was sure that Kosta understood.

  “I had to find you to understand what I should do next,” Kosta said incredulously, “More than obligations to family, friends, more than anything, you think I’ll go of my own accord, because it’s what you would do?”

  “Precisely,” he exclaimed, overjoyed. “I spent all my adult life pondering life - the why of it. When I found out that the Library was still intact, I was too old to attempt the trip.”

  The old man’s excitement was infectious. “Once I get there, where do I begin?” Kosta asked. “For what should I look?”

  “Look for a volume called Idammah-Gan Codex.” He stared at him pointedly. “Once you’ve found it, you’ll know what to do.”

  “Are you still…” Kosta asked suspiciously. “Is this still part of what Kostadino said you wanted?”

  “You had the choice to come here,” he answered. “You also chose to leave your ancestor alone, walking in his empty city. We wanted to show you a path you didn’t know you wanted. You can still have a normal, uneventful life. You don’t have to go to the Library, walk amidst shelves and stacks which have been undisturbed since Marc Anthony gave them to Cleopatra.” He was blunt. “You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want.”

  Kosta listened and knew that he wanted to see those pristine shelves. Books and scrolls filled with thoughts and beliefs, which had been unseen for millennia. He wanted to read the works of ancient masters, unadulterated by translation or duplication. “How do I find it?” Plethon smiled at Kosta’s question.

  “It’s by the ancient harbor.” Plethon spoke softly, even though there was nobody around to hear what he said. “The real treasures are in the catacombs. Only copies were kept in the grand halls and reading rooms. The originals were off-limits to any but the initiated.”

  “Why now? Why me?” Neither of them expected these queries. Kosta was more surprised than Plethon.

  “I traveled extensively before I settled and taught high-born students. I covered the world, from Andalusia, in Spain, to the Delhi lands. I spoke to devotees of Mohammed, Buddha and Christ.” He stopped, surprised at his own words. “After so much time, it didn’t matter to whom I spoke, instead, I just listened.”

  “What did you hear?” Kosta was intent on his reply, forgetting his earlier questions.

  “I heard no reason for distinction. They’re all the same. They are but different interpretations of the unexplained. I can’t tell you what this is, because the only understanding I have is my own and you have to come to yours.”

  “Why now? Why me?” Kosta repeated his questions, though, slowly, he started to understand, even without explanation. His questions ended up being rhetorical.

  “Any path, or way you follow, is someone else’s.” Plethon added, “Now, because so much faith has eroded, reason has, once again, become our best tool. Just as in Plato’s time, we use humanity as the measure of all things. I’ll go a step further. Properly prepared, we can find all things within ourselves. In ourselves, we can find what we revered in gods. It will be different for you, as it was for me, as well as for others who searched for their own way. I can’t explain any further. Any words will only sully it. Will provide an even more incomplete explanation.”

  “But why me?” Kosta wanted to know the reason why this duty fell to him, rather than any other Truth, his Uncle George or Malone. There were many people more deserving, or capable of understanding all that Plethon had said.

  “Nobody else would understand.” He waved his hands about the ruined Palataki, indicating far more than the crumbled, stone walls. “What the Truth did to those unfortunate Byzantines in Kostadinoupoli is what the world now needs.”

  “The world?” Kosta was overwhelmed.

  The old teacher laughed. “No, not like that. The change you’ll make is one of perception. Within the pages of many books, starting with the Idammah-Gan, are keys which will unlock a sequence, releasing the world from a shackled understanding.” He smiled. “I don’t mean each person, individually, rather, collectively. You’ll see.”

  “All right then.” Kosta touched the old man’s frail chest, sending him to his reward. It was where they now stood, but it was warm and roofed. The room was filled with Laconian sunlight. He sat at a table and pondered an obscure scroll, atop an open, vellum leafed book. Plethon had already known peace in his lifetime. It was a peace that he easily recalled.

  Before Kosta could leave, the old philosopher asked him if he needed to know the location of the entrance to the Library’s catacombs. Kosta replied that he knew where to look. He thanked him and walked out of the building - from where he came, to where he had originally intended to go.

  Home: Alexandria.

  - Dangerous Words -

  TIME: AUGUST 10TH, 1961. ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT

  So much forgotten; so much more lost.

  The thought weighed as heavily on Kosta’s mind as the tons of earth above him. He felt the burden every time he stood still and wiped sweat away from under the miner’s helmet, which emitted just enough light for him to be able to see the path. Signs, worn by the millennia, were almost impossible to follow beneath the ruins of the Royal Library. Above him, bare foundations marked where the complete knowledge of antiquity had been housed and twice burned alive.

  It had taken five centuries, a Caesar and a Bishop, to destroy the Library of Alexandria. The Ptolemies, Egyptian successors to Alexander the Great, had erected it beside their busiest port. They had ordered that every ship and traveler must surrender all books, or texts, in their possession. They were then copied and returned. Their owners were never able to tell that the originals were never returned, but remained at the great library, whose renown grew to mythical proportions.

  Kosta knew about libraries; he was pained when he first saw these ruins. His search through the underground had begun, and stopped, more than a year before. After leaving Plethon at Mystra, he had tried, and failed, to find the entrance to the library’s catacombs. He had then been forced to search elsewhere for clues. He traveled the world, going from one exclusive, unique library to another, searching for knowledge lying long dormant, thought lost, forgotten, more powerful and dangerous than anybody believed. He searched through tomes, codices and secret texts, incredulous that he was able to understand every language he read: French, Latin, German, Aramaic, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and ancient Greek.

  In order to have access to these private libraries, he bargained, bribed and used every subterfuge, wile, trickery, deceit and deception. If necessary, he even gained entry through impersonation. Rothschild Institutes & Depositories, Sufiya and Astan-Quds Razavi, Medici Library, Mortlake Residence and The Philosophical Research Society, all willingly opened their doors to him. He also went through many of the newly discovered works from Nag Hammadi, later called the Gnostic Gospels, which included La Tome de Les Parfaits, L’Histoire des Elites, the Sangrael Gospel.

  In addition to the private collections of the wealthy elite, there were other texts, guarded and kept well hidden by clandestine parts of the Roman Catholic Church. In the Vatican, itself, there was more than thirty miles of shelves, known as the Secret Archives. The church’s judicial bodies — the Roman Rota, Apostolic Signatura and the Apostolic Penitentiary — each had their own chanceries.

  At any time during his quest, had he been discovered, his life would have been at risk, not only as a result of his subterfuge, but also because of where he ventured and who he was. More than the church’s judic
ial bodies roamed the secret corners of the Vatican. Kosta passed many priests, their hands scarred from fighting. He looked into many blankly staring eyes, but his lies were always sufficient to dissuade further suspicion. They wanted to believe the lies, so he let them.

  By itself, much of the knowledge he uncovered was unique and innocuous. Each individual piece came alive to him from information he had uncovered in unrelated codices, fitting together the puzzle pieces as no one else had ever done. The deeper he penetrated, the easier it was to remain unknown.

  His command of forgotten dialects and languages became unparalleled. During the seventh months of his immersion in rare, forgotten texts and unique volumes, he discovered the repeated prophecies of a unique birth. It was spoken of at length in many manuscripts. It was detailed in the reputed, original collections of Nostradamus’ Quatrains, the Gnostic Gospels, the Apocrypha, Idammah-Gan Codex and early Christian volumes, not included in the modern Bible.

  After he completed that odyssey of discovery, he returned to Alexandria to find the original text, about which Plethon had spoken. During his first week, he had searched the wider ruins, along the major, original book stacks and reading rooms, finally discovering the entrance to an abandoned stairway. It was close to where Caesar’s men had carelessly lit the fires, which had burned down Alexandria’s wharfs and docks. The collateral damage was never even mentioned in his memoirs, the Civil Wars, because it would’ve pricked at his vanity, worse than the pugios did on the Ides of March.

  After Kosta found the stairway, he descended and searched the honeycomb of passages for a passage to further stairs, leading to where all the original works, ever held at the Royal Library, were stored. It was true that every book entering Alexandria had remained there. Even Marc Anthony’s wedding gifts to Cleopatra were copied — every one of the 200,000 Pergamon scrolls, texts and codices.