The Magic Circle

by Katherine Neville

  “Do you know who was the executor of Pandora’s estate?” I asked Sam.

  “Exactly! That’s the critical point.” He grasped both my arms. Pain shot up to my shoulder; I winced and couldn’t keep from crying out. Sam released me quickly, in alarm.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “Fourteen stitches. I almost collided with an avalanche,” I told him—one of the less dramatic of last week’s events that I’d managed to leave out of my earlier account. I drew in my breath and gingerly touched my twinging arm beneath the fabric.

  Sam was looking at me with concern. He reached over to stroke my hair tenderly, shaking his head.

  “It’s almost healed; I’m okay,” I said. “But it did occur to me that Pandora would have to be pretty confident to let anyone hand out documents, after her death, that she’d spent her life collecting and protecting.”

  “The exact conclusion I arrived at—more so, given the odd circumstances,” said Sam. “My own mother, Bright Cloud, had died only a few months before Pandora did. Father and I were both in shock and in mourning, and I’d never traveled so far away as Europe. Father therefore requested he be sent by mail any legal papers he needed to sign for the bequest. To his surprise, he was told it wouldn’t be possible: that under the terms of Pandora’s will, he must sign for and receive his legacy from the executor in person. So father and I went to Vienna.”

  “Then the executor did have an important role,” I said. “Who was he?”

  “The man we’ve just learned was Laf’s first violin teacher,” said Sam. “Pandora’s dark, romantic cousin Dacian Bassarides, who joined her and the children on the merry-go-round at the Prater, then went with them to the Hofburg to see the weapons. When my father and I went to Vienna for the will, I was only four years old and Dacian Bassarides was in his seventies, but I’ll never forget his face. It was wildly handsome. Wild—just as Laf described the young Pandora.

  “It’s interesting, too, Laf’s mentioning that business on the merry-go-round about Hitler telling the children that Earn meant eagle in Old High German, and Daci meant wolf. Such words seem important. Quite a few of the manuscripts I’ve translated involve the family of the Roman emperor Augustus. I’d love to learn who it was that gave your father that same name. And of course, you know what Pandora’s family name, Bassarides, means in Greek?”

  I shook my head.

  “The skins or pelts of foxes,” said Sam. “But I’ve learned that the root is from a Libyan Berber word, bassara, which means vixen—the female fox. Very much as Laf had described Pandora, a wild animal. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “‘Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes,’” I quoted from the Song of Songs which is Solomon’s.

  Sam glanced up in astonishment, followed by the dazzling smile of approval that always made me feel, as a child, that I’d just done something intolerably clever.

  “So you did understand my message!” he said. “I knew you could do it, hotshot, but I didn’t think you’d have time to put it together that quickly.”

  “I didn’t,” I said, though my mind was still racing. “I only deciphered enough to figure out our meeting place this morning—not whatever else it was you wanted me to know.”

  “But that’s it, don’t you see?” said Sam. “That’s the irony. The cunning little vixen, Pandora, actually did spoil the grapes—for at least the last twenty-five years—by keeping these manuscripts so successfully apart. I didn’t begin to realize what she’d done until after I’d already sent you that parcel.” Then his smile faded as he looked at me in the dim light of the fire with his silvery eyes. “Ariel,” he said softly, “I think we both understand what we must do.”

  My heart sank, but I knew he was right. If this puzzle was so dangerous and ancient that everyone wanted it, we wouldn’t be safe till we knew what it was all about.

  “If the parcel you sent never shows up,” I said, “I guess you’ll have to reconstruct everything from those originals you’ve hidden; and Zoe’s runes—”

  “That can wait, since at least we know there are originals,” said Sam. “But, Ariel, if someone has been so desperate to get these manuscripts that our lives are in real danger, our first priority is to learn what the four divided parts are, and why Pandora collected them in the first place. I need to go see the one person who can answer that question: her cousin and executor, Dacian Bassarides.”

  “What makes you believe Dacian Bassarides is still alive?” I said. “If he was close to Pandora’s age, way back in Vienna, by now he’s pushing a century. And how do you expect to find him? After all, twenty-five years have passed since you saw him. The trail’s a bit cold by now, I should think.”

  “To the contrary,” Sam said. “Dacian Bassarides is alive and well at ninety-five, and still remembered in some quarters. Half a century ago, he was a noted violinist in that tempestuous Paganini style: they used to call him Prince of Foxes. If you haven’t heard of him, it’s only because for some reason, though he performed in public, he refused to record. Until this morning, I’d never known he’d taught Laf, too. But as to where he can be found today, I’d have thought your friend Hauser might have told you. It’s my understanding that for the past fifty years, even throughout the war, Dacian Bassarides’s permanent base was in France, and that he’s great chums with Zoe, who’s now in her eighties. If anyone could arrange a tryst with him, she should be able to.”

  I knew it was too dangerous for Sam to go to Paris seeking Dacian Bassarides. He’d have to clear immigration and security in two countries using false IDs. But I soon found the solution to the problem:

  Hadn’t Wolfgang Hauser said he wanted to help “protect” my inheritance, and that he hoped I would meet my aunt Zoe in Paris to learn more about it? Since the Pod was sending us to Russia on government business, maybe we could arrange a layover for the two of us to visit with Zoe in Paris. Though Sam didn’t sound thrilled at the idea of my April-ing in Paris with Wolfgang, it was after all Sam’s idea that we interrogate Dacian Bassarides. This seemed the simplest way to do it.

  We concurred that Sam should spend the next weeks, while I got my Franco-Russian trip set, shaking our family tree on the sly to see if he could knock down a few rotten apples—and that it would be a good idea to visit his grandfather, Dark Bear, on the Nez Percé reservation at Lapwai. Though neither of us had seen Dark Bear in years, we thought he might provide insight into Sam’s father, when Earnest lived at Lapwai before Sam was born—information that might shed more light on at least one member involved in the family schism that we knew had inherited manuscripts.

  But I understood that my family added up to more than eccentricity, fame, and feuding war parties. There was something mysterious that seemed to lie buried at its very core. To explore that core we needed fresh data gathered through an impartial outside source. It was then that I thought of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

  Few outsiders or “gentiles” are aware that the Mormon Church maintains extensive genealogical facilities near Salt Lake City, containing records on family lineage that date back to the time of Cain and Seth. Olivier told me these records were kept on computers, the world’s bloodlines woven in microchip technology, hidden deep in bomb-proof caves within a Utah mountain—like the rune tapestries of those fabled Norns of Nürnberg, I thought.

  Though we had our missions laid out, Sam and I still had the problem of how to make contact after we left this cabin and parted ways—not easy, when we couldn’t guess where either of us might be tomorrow morning. Sam had a plan: Each day, wherever he happened to be, he’d find a copy center and fax my computer at work leaving a fake name but a real number where I could fax him. I’d go to a copy shop and send him any new info with a key to decrypt it and a number where he could reply. This would work in the short haul, since there were copy shops in every town around the globe—except maybe in Soviet Russia, once I got there.

  When Sam extinguished o
ur fire and we came out of the cabin, though we’d been inside little more than an hour, the sunlight glittering from the snow in the high meadow was already dazzling. Just before I put on my dark glasses against the glare, Sam tossed his arm around my neck, drew me to him, and kissed my hair. Then he held me away.

  “Just remember I love you, hotshot,” he told me seriously. “Don’t run into any more avalanches; I’d like to get you back in one piece. And I’m not at all sure about this business of your going to Paris.…”

  “I love you back,” I told Sam, smiling. Putting my glasses on, I took his hand. “Meanwhile, blood brother, may the Great Bear Spirit walk in your moccasin prints. And before we part, you must swear to me on her totem you’ll take care of yourself the same way.”

  Sam smiled too, and held up his hand, palm toward me.

  “Honest Injun,” he said.

  I was coming over the top of the high meadow when I saw his outline against the shadowy blue snow in the lower meadow, an athletic form in a sleek dark ski suit and goggles, his shaggy hair moving in the morning breeze. I didn’t need to see his face. No two people could move with that grace and agility on the snow. It was definitely Wolfgang Hauser. And he was headed toward me, following my tracks, the only ones that had yet been cut down there, I was sure, in last night’s new snow.

  Holy shit. Thank God we’d decided to take separate routes out. But at the speed Wolfgang was moving, it would only be moments before he reached the place in the woods where Sam’s tracks and mine joined this morning. How in hell was I supposed to explain why and with whom I’d decided to go skiing in this isolated spot before dawn? The question of what Wolfgang himself was doing here, when he was supposed to be six hundred miles away in Nevada, would just have to wait.

  In panic, I bolted off the rim and slashed down through the woods. It had never occurred to me that I should return by the same path I’d used that morning. I wasn’t even sure where my old trail was in these woods, or—since it had still been dark—exactly where Sam and I had met. My only ambition was to find Wolfgang before he himself reached that spot and we would have something very, very difficult to discuss. I was moving so fast through the blur of woods that I skied right past him.

  “Ariel!” I heard with a Doppler effect, and screeched to a halt, nearly wrapping myself around a tree.

  I gingerly crosshatched back through the woods. Wolfgang, skating between the trees, pulled aside fir branches laden with last night’s snow as he passed. As he released each branch, the load dropped on the ground with a soft plump. When we met in the dappled light, he regarded me with a questioning but stern expression, so I thought I’d better get in the first word.

  “Why, Dr. Hauser, what a surprise,” I said, trying to coax out a smile, though I still wasn’t sure if he’d found our tracks. “We run into each other in the oddest places, don’t we? I thought you were in Nevada just now.”

  “I told you I would come if I possibly could do so,” he said in a tone of mild irritation. “I’ve driven all night to get here.”

  “So I guess you decided to loosen up from your trip by going for a spin on skis out here in the middle of nowhere?” I commented dryly.

  “Ariel, please don’t play games with me. I went to your room as soon as I arrived at the Lodge—the sun wasn’t even up yet. When I learned you weren’t there, I was horribly worried about what might have become of you. But before sending up a general alarm, I went to the car park and saw that your car was missing too. It snowed last night: the only fresh tracks from the car park headed in this direction, so I came and found your car in the woods. I followed your ski tracks here. Now it’s your turn to explain what you thought you were doing skiing all by yourself, miles away from the Lodge, before dawn?”

  Whew—so he thought I was skiing by myself, which meant he hadn’t reached our tracks. That rescued me from the next step, something I’d already been braced for: lying without compunction. But it still didn’t get me out of the woods.

  “I was hoping a little exercise would help me work off some of that cognac your sister and I slugged down in my room last night,” I told him. And it was true.

  “Bettina?” he said in amazement—so I knew I’d pushed the right button. “Bettina is staying here at the Lodge?”

  “We tied one on,” I said, but when Wolfgang looked puzzled I translated, “We got drunk together, and I pumped her for information about you. Now I understand why you told me my uncle Lafcadio was just an acquaintance of yours, not a friend. But in our lengthy conversation on the topic of my family, you just might have mentioned that your sister has been living with my uncle these past ten years.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Wolfgang, shaking his head as if he were just waking up—as he might well feel, if he’d truly been driving all night. He looked at me with cloudy deep blue eyes. “I haven’t seen Bettina in rather a long time. I suppose she explained that to you, too?”

  “Yes, but I’ll bet I’d like your explanation better. I mean, why would two people like you and Bamb—like your sister—become strangers to one another, just because of the overdramatized histrionics of somebody like Uncle Laf?”

  “Actually, I still see my sister from time to time,” said Wolfgang, not really answering my question. “But I am surprised to learn that Lafcadio brought her here from Vienna like this. He must not have guessed that I might be here, too.”

  “He’ll know now,” I told him. “Let’s all have breakfast together and see what kind of fireworks start popping.”

  Wolfgang stuck his poles in the snow and put his hands on my shoulders. “You’re very brave to plan such a meal. Have I said that I missed you, and that Nevada is a truly awful place?”

  “I thought Germans always loved all those neon lights,” I said.

  “Germans?” said Wolfgang, taking his hands from my shoulders. “Who told you—oh, Bettina. It appears you did get her drunk.”

  I smiled back and shrugged. “My favorite interrogation technique: I learned it at the breast of my mother,” I admitted. “By the way, since it now seems that you and I are practically related, through this attachment of my uncle and your sister, I thought I might get more personal and ask things I want to know about you—like for instance, what does the ‘K’ stand for?”

  Wolfgang was still smiling, but raised one brow in curiosity. “It stands for my middle name: Kaspar. Why do you ask?”

  “Like Casper, the friendly ghost?” I said with a laugh.

  “Like Balthazar, Melchior, and Kaspar—you know, those three wise Magi who brought gifts to the infant Jesus.” Then Wolfgang added: “Who suggested that you ask me that question?”

  Boy, I might be terrific at interrogating the incredibly soused, but it seemed I was the world’s worst, myself, at handling unexpected questions. I tried a punt.

  “I guess you don’t know I have a photographic memory,” I said—not really answering his question. “I saw your name logged into that sign-in book at the site, including all that Herr Professor Doktor business, and the fact that you’re stationed at Krems, Austria. Where on earth is Krems, anyway?” I rattled on blithely, hoping I could wriggle from beneath Wolfgang’s penetrating and rather suspicious gaze.

  “Actually, it’s where you and I will be heading together on Tuesday,” Wolfgang said. “So you’ll be able to see for yourself.”

  I tried not to do a double-take, since my head was starting to throb with the effect of what liquor I hadn’t managed to ski off.

  “You mean this Tuesday?” I said, feeling slightly hysterical. This couldn’t be happening again—not now. Not after I’d just found Sam, and had no way to find him again until he found me. “Like, the day after tomorrow we’re heading to Austria?”

  Wolfgang nodded, and when he spoke it was with a certain urgency.

  “Pastor Dart phoned me in Nevada yesterday. He’d been trying to find us both—you and me—and he was relieved to learn I knew where you could be reached,” he told me. “Our plane to Vienna will lea
ve New York late Monday night—tomorrow. In order to catch that flight, we must fly all day; that’s why I drove last night from Nevada to get here, pick you up en route, and get us both back in time to pack. I thought, since you’d told me Maxfield would be here anyway, he could bring your car later and you’d come with me. There are many things you and I need to discuss in private before we leave the country. We’ll have time for breakfast here, of course, but we must—”

  “Whoa!” I cried, holding up my ski mitt. “May I ask exactly why you and I are suddenly jet-setting off to Vienna together? Or has something escaped me?”

  “Oh, didn’t I say?” he said, smiling somewhat abashedly. “Our Soviet visas have been approved by the embassy. Vienna is our first stop en route to Leningrad.”

  Wolfgang had brought me a little phrase book of Russian for travelers, and I read it as he drove back from Sun Valley. I wished I could find some Russian words right now that would truly reflect my current state of mind. I did find words for constipation (zahpoer), for diarrhea (pahnoes), and for bowel (kyee-SHESCH-nyeek)—this last, in my view, about as close as I was likely to get to the feel of the thing. But though I’d learned Wolfgang himself was fairly fluent in Russian, I felt somehow awkward asking him to translate the expression “holy shit.”

  To describe brunch as rather strained would be more than an understatement. Laf glared at me when I blew in with Wolfgang, and Bambi and her brother embraced. Then Olivier spent the entire meal glaring at me when he learned in swift succession that: a) Bambi was Wolfgang’s sister; b) Wolfgang was driving me back home today, while Olivier chauffeured my car and my cat; and c) Wolfgang and I were leaving at the crack of dawn to depart for an idyllic journey together to the USSR.