The Infinite Library

by Kane X Faucher

  “Was this corroborated?”

  “Not at all!” Dr Warburg sniffed. “The first reference was to a manuscript written by Pseudo-Lull, a reference to be found on page 216. There was no page 216 since the manuscript only had 215 pages.”

  “Perhaps it was on the flyleaf or the colophon?”

  “I checked, even with UV light – nothing.”

  “And the second book?”

  “Either it was never catalogued, lost, or simply never existed at all. I did, however, have some luck from an unexpected place. I was studying a work reputed to be in the hand of John Dee, circa 1586, and followed a ciphertext section that, with some rearrangement, could have led to another key.”

  “Oh?”

  “Dee was an admirer of Trithemius' cryptography, and would on occasion try his hand at double enciphering – that is, to conceal a text in cipher, and conceal a deeper meaning beyond the surface cipher.”

  “Were you able to crack it?”

  “With ease; Dee's ciphering abilities may have been superior for his time, but history and patient scholarship eventually reveals all the magician's tricks. He does, in fact, reference an Edw. - i.e., 'Edward' in relation to the Ars atrocitatis.”

  “Edward Kelley, Dee's assistant?”

  “That was what I assumed, as a reflex, but it didn't seem to accord with what Dee was trying to achieve with this particular double-cipher. There would have been no reason to bury Kelley's name, stitched to the Ars, since Kelley had no connection to the purported contents.”

  “Which are?” I asked, not concealing my own mounting excitement.

  “This is where the matter gets muddy, I'm afraid. I've heard some go as ridiculously far as to say it is the end of days. Such religious zeal among millenarians is tiresome, and each of their predictions has turned out wrong and is once again deferred to some future date. Another report says it is the result of some variety of synthesis between seven magi, and another stating it is the synthesis of the most representative of the seven lands. The synthesis connection is by far the most prevalent, but as to what or who enters into synthesis, and what the outcome of it is remains shrouded between the covers of a book we have no access to.”

  “But Castellemare presented you with a copy.”

  “On loan, and not for very long. The copy I was lent was quite battered and missing several leaves, some of them seemingly torn out in haste. I was lucky to squeeze out two intelligible lines at a time, the rest of it quite faded, or soiled, missing, or blacked out. It also didn't help that the printers used a very thin ink.”

  “Do you have a copy of what you saw? A transcription?”

  “I used to, but as soon as I gave back the copy to Castellemare, my transcription went missing. I assume given Castellemare's secrecy that he had plucked them, leaving me only with the notes which I used to write my study and signal attention to this peculiar manuscript.”

  “Would you happen to have a few of your notes that I could glance at?” I asked hopefully.

  “Somewhere, but I'll need some time to retrieve them,” he said, waving his hand over the hopeless avalanche of notes and papers. “You have to understand that it has been a very long time since I reopened that case after it went so tragically cold.”

  “I understand. Could you give me any physical details of the edition Castellemare leant you? It might be of some service to me if I can, upon a wing and a prayer, locate a copy of my own.”

  “You would be in luck. I just happen to have a card file – I know, anachronistic of me, but old library-style habits die hard. Let me check.”

  Dr Warburg shifted his bulk to a the old file card catalogue, flipped the yellowed cards until he found what he was looking for, and then he closed the drawer.

  “Found it,” he said, handing it to me for inspection.

  Ars Atrocitatis – Anonymous

  In English, on paper; publication date: 1315; 6 1/4' x 4 ½', vi+ 185 leaves, no illuminations or capitals. Severely damaged, obv. attempt at rebinding. See notes.

  1. Some leaves missing near beginning and end.

  2. (fol 173r) unintelligible notes in margin.

  3. (fol 360v) colophon with previous owner strikethrough.

  4. Printed date inaccurate. Typography mimics early 14th century, but obviously typeset for majority of document save for leaves 12, 33, 72, 78, 112, 131, and 182 (hand-lettered and possibly re-stitched / inserted from original 1315 ed'n).

  “So if the edition is not from 1315, although it might have some of the original leaves rebound into it, what year do you place it?” I asked.

  “That's a mighty difficulty, I'm afraid. Upon examination of the typography, I could date it to around the late 1500s, although the method of printing was archaic. The colophon boasts that it was done by chalcography – brass punches. Such a Venetian method was mildly popular in the late 1400s but long since discontinued. As well, even if there are original 1315 leaves in the book, they are written in English. All texts of that time were written in Latin. If that were not enough to drive a researcher mad, the title page was also written in English, but not according to older spelling. Look at the back of the card.”

  Curious title page: Ars atrocitatis, This being the 7th and Final Volume of the Dies Irae Cycle, Full and Unexpurgated From Its Original Printing. Including a Preface by Fr. Ioannes Obercit. Published in London. Anno MCCCXV.

  “The 'Dies Irae Cycle'?”

  “Day of Wrath, judgement. None of it adds up.”

  “What is this about a preface?”

  “There was a preface, but it was not in the hand of this Fr. Ioannes Obercit. Obercit was a 17th century friar obsessed with clocks, and no previous reference is extant. The preface in the copy I had was written by that same agonizing 'Edw.'”

  “But we know it was published in London.”

  “Actually, the colophon states that it was printed in Ambianis – i.e., Amiens.”

  “Given all these inconsistencies, it seems to me that the book that was leant you was a very sloppy forgery.”

  “You perhaps know as well as I do that in his Library, there are no forgeries. And it is proper parlance in our trade, when the authenticity of a book cannot be confirmed, to give it the probationary description of being a copy. In addition, I do recall the final page of the text, a rather ominous finale. Not much of the actual book was readable given its poor condition, but these phrases were: 'cave ab homine unius libri' and 'cetera desunt'.”

  “Beware those with only one book.”

  “And 'the rest is missing'. Perhaps this was meant to deepen and broaden the mystery, or perhaps to throw non-initiates off the scent of the secret.”

  “Do you suspect that it was written by and for some kind of secret order?”

  “There were not enough references to any collective in what I was able to read, no mystic symbols, or any of the other glyphs so cherished by a secret society. I do think it was meant to be consumed by the few, but not necessarily those who were part of the same fraternal order. The title page is written as if the book were meant for public sale, and makes no mention of whom the book is meant for. There were no astrological diagrams, no recognizable enigmatic phrases in currency among alchemists, and certainly no discussion of the ways to conduct sacred rites. I would like to think this book was for some order, and that it was some devotional arcana of secrets, but the evidence did not bear that out. Of course, much of it was in such poor condition that I could not read it, and so I cannot say any of this with any certainty.”

  “The title page mentions that it is the seventh and final in the series. Have you any idea what the other six are?”

  “I mentioned already, and this is a dim guess, Codex Infinitum, Codex Machina, and Spiritus Designata, but I would hazard to guess that there were several associate texts that acted as apocryphal spinoffs. I would postulate the existence of nine or more other books that make up the cycle, but it would be hard to determine without the original which were genuinely part of it.”

/>   “I have encountered mention of this Codex Infinitum,” I ventured.

  “As have I. At last tally, there were fourteen variations.”

  “Fourteen? Have you encountered one of them?”

  “No, this is by mention in other manuscripts dating between 1355 and 1662. Most of them reference it with a helpful annotation, but all of them are widely different in what this book contains. Sadly, the references are scant, even in their synopsis, so I could not tell you what the book – or books – is about. It may have turned out that the title, Codex Infinitum, was a popular one used to name many different books.”

  “I would like to obtain a copy of your study on the Ars. I know you directed me to the library holdings, but I was hoping to obtain a copy direct from you.”

  At this, Dr Warburg seemed to go grey. It was a perturbing request.

  “I like to think of myself as very accommodating to the needs of research, but generally only where the research will result in a fruitful end. If there is any caution I can give, and one that enthusiasm has a tendency to deafen, it is this: you ought to concentrate your efforts elsewhere. If I learned anything in my feverish obsession with that book, it was that it is akin to struggling in quicksand.”

  “Let me assume the burden of responsibility for what I choose to research. I have a personal investment in this project, and I am asking you for assistance.”

  “Really, it is a work of juvenilia, filled with hasty speculations and roughshod analysis. You really shouldn't trouble yourself with it.”

  “Dr Warburg, I am not interested in your intellectual modesty. I am asking you, as one touched by the mystery of Castellemare's Library to another, to lend me a copy of your study on the Ars atrocitatis. It would be of immense help in my own work as I have a few other pieces of the puzzle that were perhaps not in your possession when you committed your study.”

  “All right, then. Come back in two days and I will have found my copy of it, a copy you need not return. But, if I may ask, I cannot suffer to allow myself in being dragged into that awful pit. So, to that end, whatever you uncover, I do not wish to be a party to it. As far as I am concerned, the matter is at an end.”

  I was more than satisfied with that arrangement. I was certain that I had tapped all that was valuable in his memory in dealing with the text, and although I wanted to discover more about his dealings with Castellemare, it would only serve as distracting anecdotal information. I thanked him warmly for his time and arranged to meet him again to retrieve his book.

  32

  Excerpt from 7th Meditation

  The Last Differentiation of Artist and Scientist

  Not even the glowing crescendo of coming day could drive away the menace of two very disturbed men wrapped in the distorting shroud of narcotic excesses. Leopold and Dr Aymer were taking an impromptu stroll in the park in the bitter cold. Dr Aymer had been sleepless for so long, beguiled by unspeakable images, his face a terrain of beard scrabble. He was certain that he was losing his mind, but he was more alarmed that it didn't concern him as much as it ought to have - “I am completely out of character, and I am complicit with this.” He did not question why he had decided to take up on Leopold's late night invitation to “go out on the town”, and his work was suffering the ravages of neglect. Leopold, his own sleep-deprived eyes darting in every direction and motored by a hallucinogenic frenzy, was speaking utter gibberish, desperately trying to light his cigarette with a spent lighter.

  “That's what I'm saying. It cudda been like that. A Pavlovian treatment kazoo, a regular Yankee Doodle Dandy, an Abrayam linkin... Fuck! What's wrong with this lighter? Always when you need the smoke the most. Didja ever see such a thing? Goddamn East St. Louis carnival monkeys and smokestacks making for the highs none of us can sustain... Anyway, yeah, the Chicago experimental free jazz scene... Cudda been like that here, but no: logic prisms where nothing beautiful can bloom, and dead soil turned with backhoes of naturalistic fallacies... no substantive principle patches or crops. Keeps spitting up like slush on moving tires. Splep-splep-splep: like that, all dirty and gross. Chicago. Jazz. Stars and Stripes. Those fifty Freudian stars, fifty American anuses shining bright, and for each a jazz musician can sax his way out through the pseudo-eroticism... that must be it, hot damnity-damn.”

  The cigarette was never lit, it just hung like a damp rope from Leopold's lips. Dr Aymer was far too sleep-deprived and stupefied to engage Leopold's nonsensical rant. Perhaps there was something profound in the random whine and roar of Leopold's extempore versification, but Dr Aymer only felt a lingering feeling of general illness.

  “I... do not feel very well,” said Dr Aymer, unsure if he should place his hands upon his belly or head.

  The brief respite from a phalanx of angry images had once again come to an end, dispelling the welcome torpor and silence of Dr Aymer's unsolicited thoughts. As much as he attempted to resist this cavalcade of horrific flashes, his weakness only plunged him further into them, his enervating sanity flailing wildly in a toxic soup. His mind was drowning in images of torture and unmentionable atrocities, and there was no way he could distance them. What Dr Aymer did not know was the origin of these unwanted thoughts, emerging as they did by that crucible of the synthesis, the Red Lion sketchbook – a product of a very unstable mind. Leopold was the example of what sustained engagement with the book promised, and given the fluttering cacophony of Leopold's utterances reflecting what must have been an internal carnival of confused and grotesque ideas, Dr Aymer did not have much time left before he, too, succumbed to this devouring circulation.

  Dr Aymer tried to anchor his thoughts to his immediate surroundings: Those salt-streaked streets, those wind-whipped overbites of snow, those brittle and ice-caked branches, those wisps of grey debris. Leopold sat with his hands digging in his coat pockets, grasping for some cached warmth. Perhaps he had left it in his other coat, Leopold thought. Meanwhile, the carefully erected latticework of Dr Aymer's reason was beginning to splinter. He could barely summon the strength to fight off this onslaught of thoughts that overwhelmed him. The hard-felt effects of the synthesis were already in motion, and his thoughts were coalescing with that of the lunatic artist that kept goading him on to accept the inevitability of their fusion. Leopold was making deadly overtures, trying to lure and seduce Dr Aymer into a domain where none of the six men were divisible anymore. It would be an act of surrender in the face of a force that had consumed the power of each of them, resetting them on a merged path towards what was still largely unknown.

  Dr Aymer knew that there was a predictive quality to genetic mergers, but that there was always the haunting possibility of chance in any concatenation of codes. It was the accident of this merger that horrified him, the uncertainty of what would be produced in the end. And why did he act so passively, surrendering what made him an individual to the whims of a confusing and hasty explanation on the necessity of a synthesis? On whose authority? A bizarre and ambiguous sort of man who seemed to have taken the reins on behalf of all involved. Why did Dr Aymer not protest? Why did he give up so easily? Why did the others merely assent to this merger without question?

  It was these thoughts that added further torment to the man who was once a notable geneticist. Although, at the same time, he could not divorce this mounting feeling of magnetizing to the other five figures, almost relishing on some level that he would become not less, but more as a result of this fusion of parts. What had been added to his personality had been all the stronger aspects of the others: the freedom in madness, the ponderousness of the philosophical, the mysticism of the prophet, the creative fervour of the artist, and... and? Something else, something dark and malicious clawing its way toward the light, something with an unspeakable vindictive gravity, its breath hot and sour with the desire for revenge against everything. Who was that “Third Man”, and what role did he play? This had never been revealed, and all queries to that effect had gone unanswered or were buried in ambiguously vague responses. He was sure no
w that whatever was tormenting him, taking control of his thoughts, was the influence of that Third Man.

  Leopold was quite certainly mad, and no less buffoonish for it. He was the artist, but the artist unchecked by any rational focus – wild and metastatic creation without intent or purpose. The synthesis would most likely benefit by furnishing that pure creativity with determination, just as the dry and analytical thinking of the philosopher or the scientist would be broadened by the infusion of creativity. Dr Aymer thought to himself that this synthesis was, in some ways, attempting to engineer the perfect and most well-rounded being. Dr Aymer was daunted by the scope of this project, and yet it appealed to that deep and secret longing lodged in the darkness of thoughts he would have rather left unexposed: the desire to create the perfect genetic specimen, as if the very theories of Darwin himself had thrown down the gauntlet, a contest to produce the ideal organism. Who, thought Dr Aymer to himself, had any right to interfere in such a lofty move toward perfection, even if it meant sacrificing what one knew as life.

  Dr Aymer could no longer keep the listing barge of himself in any degree of control. He began to cry, softly at first, and then heaving sobs overtook him. Leopold, captured within his own madness, merely looked on with the gaze of someone enjoying a plot twist in a film.

  He was making small slits in his arms, entry points for the wires that were hooked up to the generator. An extension of the vein is an extension of life, the madman thought. His eyes scanned the pompous titles of every article his mind had ever conspired to write, every trace of the paper-scholar trail that littered his professional past, every pound of text on his collapsing shelves, and he was sickened. But there was one freeing thought, one method of purest release: the great electrocution. What would stay his hand now, now that there was only loss to look forward to? The madman, despite initial enthusiasm, was now overcome with regret at the thought of the inevitable synthesis that would forever efface his own individual self. His fear had got the better of him, and he realized that his secret dream of being a part of a great electric circuit belonging to something far more meaningful had ceased to entice him since he now knew what it entailed. However, despite his sudden timidity in the face of his goal, he could not go through with his plan to remove himself irrevocably from the synthesis by way of this electric suicide. But what stayed his hand – fear, inevitability or necessity – he could not say.