The 37th mandala : a novel

by Laidlaw, Marc

  That was when he received Elias Mooney's letter. With his keen eye for obscure resources, he saw a new source of material falling into his hands. Suddenly his writing plans extended ahead to books four, five, and six. He might not necessarily wish to pen the old man's autobiography per se, but books based on Mooney's eccentric knowledge could easily interest the right publisher. He'd heard that the highly respected Veritas was starting a line of New Age writings; this might be his entree to that house. And the old man had said he was a collector, which meant he undoubtedly owned rare volumes that Derek might borrow and scour in search of even more ideas for his own books.

  And Mooney did not disappoint him. He was indeed a fertile source of imaginings....

  18

  Eli did not trust people readily, so it seemed odd to Derek that he had warmed to him so quickly, as if they were predestined soul-friends. His paranoia level fluctuated wildly according to his mood and medication. One day he sang songs and spun out amusing tales of his psychic exploits; the next, he ranted darkly for hours of how his life was a cage and of how his captors were dragging him closer to the hour of execution. They had taken his wives, scattered his children across the globe, and sabotaged his lines of communication with many of his correspondents.

  Derek took to visiting twice weekly, and it was not long before he realized that what the old man wanted, more than a ghostwriter, was a sympathetic ear, someone who would not object immediately to his extraordinary worldview. Derek was eager to play this role. Eli embraced a far more interesting, complex cosmology than any he had encountered before, in or out of popular occultism or the world's religions. He felt certain that whatever book emerged from these conversations, it would be unique and compelling. He began to scope out possible publishers, leaning more and more toward the budding Veritas line.

  Yet Eli was maddeningly vague when it came to spelling out the basic tenets of his beliefs. He would discourse for hours on the minutiae of various esoteric sects but never name any particular gods he believed in or any specific devils he feared, as if naming them would draw their unwelcome attention. With the same scrupulous paranoia, he refused to discuss certain subjects over the telephone, stating that government pawns of these powers monitored the lines constantly, and that the mention of key words or phrases would instantly set off alarms in dark fortresses, both of this world and out of it.

  In other words, he exhibited swatches of his philosophy but never the whole tapestry. Whenever Derek tried to piece the fabric together, he was left with gaping holes. Part of the reason for this was that Eli presumed Derek already possessed an Initiate's knowledge, and Derek had to be careful never to reveal his ignorance.

  One evening, hoping to loosen the old man's tongue, he brought along a bottle of wine. Eli accepted the bottle gratefully but put it aside unopened.

  "I was hoping we could toast our partnership," Derek said hopefully.

  "Oh, no, I never touch alcohol except in ritual."

  "Ah, well, of course. I should have realized. And when do you think you'll know me well enough, Elias, so that we might perform a ritual together?"

  The old man's tufted eyebrows hovered above his eyeglass frames. "Together?"

  "Well, a sorcerer's ritual style is a key to his whole character, wouldn't you say? It would mean a great deal to me in trying to capture your essence for the book."

  "No doubt it would, no doubt.. . but I'm afraid that's almost impossible. Not to slight your own abilities, but... it would be far too dangerous unless great precautions were taken."

  "Well, certainly, we would take all the precautions."

  "Alone, I am capable of defending against the things that flock around when I cast a circle. But I'm not used to working with others. I couldn't be sure of safeguarding you."

  "I think I can take care of myself," Derek assured him.

  "Actually ..." Eli bowed his head. "The truth is, after Evangeline died, I swore never to work with anyone, ever again. I learned a terrible lesson then."

  It was late in the evening, Eli a shadow in his chair. It took Derek several moments to realize that the old man was weeping.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to stir up painful memories."

  Eli shook his head, gathered himself upright, and sighed, as if shrugging off his pain. "Why don't you turn on a light?"

  Derek switched on a lamp, filling the room with a glare that was anything but reassuring; too stark, too bright, it caused his eyes to water.

  "I have spoken very little of Evangeline," Eli said.

  "The memories are still ... too sad," Derek said.

  "There's another reason, though. What happened to us was the single most important event of my life. I cannot explain my life, or make sense of my philosophy, without referring to those days; yet I find it almost impossible to speak of them. They involve too many things that must never be published."

  Derek checked the cassette to make sure it was nowhere near the end of a reel. "Yes?" he said helpfully.

  "Maybe you can advise me, Derek. There must be a way to speak secretly about these things ... to make myself understood without being explicit or too grim. As I've said before, I don't want people to lose heart. I want to improve lives, not fill them with fear. But for me, knowing what I know, it is impossible not to feel fear every moment. Resistance is a constant battle-it takes all my will not to give in. The same knowledge might overcome weaker souls. Evangeline never really understood, for which I give thanks every day; but it was through her—damn the corruptors—through her that I learned the truth."

  Eli was silent a long while. Derek said nothing. He set the recorder on pause, thinking to get up and brew a fresh pot of coffee, then either embark on a new subject or say his farewells.

  As he was rising, Eli said, "I'll need your help."

  "Certainly." Derek was already up. "What can I do?"

  "In the hall closet, on the top shelf. I had one of my nurses put it there after Evangeline's death, so I wouldn't be able to reach it, wouldn't be tempted."

  Derek located the closet in the small hall adjacent to the living room.

  "There's a box," came Eli's voice. "You'll see it. Be careful, though, it's heavy with books. Bring it down."

  Derek opened the closet, which he had eyed curiously on numerous occasions, expecting it to be full of magical talismans and ritual costumes, carved staves and shamanic animal masks. Instead he found several overcoats and a vacuum cleaner. Above, on a shelf, was a stack of shoe boxes labeled "Snapshots," "Cards," "Grandchildren." Next to these was a larger cardboard box, unmarked, which proved to be not quite as heavy as Eli had led him to believe. He got it down without much trouble. When he set it at the old man's feet, Eli stared at it without blinking, his lips and jaws trembling.

  "Shall I make more coffee?" Derek said.

  Eli made no reply.

  Derek busied himself in the kitchen. By the time he returned with two full cups, Eli was leaning over, trying to fumble at the folded flaps without much success.

  Derek squatted down and quickly threw the flaps open, hearing a sharp gasp from Eli as he did so.

  At first Derek wasn't sure what he was seeing. The box was packed with some loose, soft material—a pliant foam padding, but strangely patterned and colored, like handmade paper. He dug under this stuff, exposing the covers of some old ledger books with red binding and black spines. Thinking these the main object of Eli's fear, he pulled out the packing material and flung it aside with a swift motion that caused it to unravel.

  Eli cried out, rolling backward nearly to the kitchen. Derek stared in horror at what he had so casually drawn from the box. It was as if a third presence had joined them, invited but unwelcome all the same.

  A complete human skin, rumpled from long confinement, lay spread out on the carpet.

  Had it been an ordinary human skin, repulsion might have been all Derek felt. But this sallow hide was riddled with bright lichenous tattoos in dark blues, brownish reds, and dirty greens. Th
e patterns were circular, wheels of all sizes, and none was identical. They speckled the shoulders, the back, and the winglike shreds that fanned out to either side ... wings with nipples centered high on each of them. The circles covered buttocks, thighs, calves, and arms, running right to the ragged hems of ankle, wrist, and neck. Derek found himself counting the blotches, as if the mundane task would restore his sense of proportion.

  "There are thirty-seven in all," Eli said, having seen his lips moving. The old man wheeled forward, his expression grim and resolute. "Put it back now—roll it up again. It's not a good idea to stare at the damn thing."

  Derek could feel the seeds of a nightmare being planted in his soul, pushed down deeper than the reach of his nerves. It was almost impossible to touch the skin again: cool as a snake, but clammy. He started to furl it up, but the underside was worse than the outside, for he could see and feel traces of tissue where fat and flesh had been flensed away. Finally he merely wadded the thing in a crumpled ball, shoving it back into the box atop the stacked red and black ledgers.

  "Wait," Eli said. "Those I want. Bring them out."

  Dropping the hide, Derek lifted the ledgers and heaped them on the floor. Then it was easy to stuff the skin into the empty box; he wove the flaps together so the carton wouldn't open on its own.

  Feeling nauseated, and somewhat wary of Eli now, Derek sank cross-legged onto the floor next to the box and the ledgers. The old man's dark eyes were full of fear and anxiety. The sight of such trepidation was slightly comforting, though he wasn't sure how to interpret it. If Eli were responsible for this skin, then perhaps he only feared prosecution; but Derek didn't think that was the source of his worry. There was something about the skin itself that unnerved him, as it would anyone. He had never expected to see anything so ghastly in this little suburban house.

  Now he thought he had finally begun to glimpse the reason for Elias Mooney's paranoia, a tangible focus for what had previously been a vague sense of dread....

  Again he wondered if any possible book was worth exposure to Eli. He'd felt so much safer sitting alone with his research materials, inventing fantasies. There was no sign here of the book he'd intended to write.

  "I am responsible for Evangeline's death," Eli said solemnly.

  Derek nearly bolted for the door, fearing that Eli was about to throw off his disguise of frail convalescent and leap at him, flaying knife flashing. Mooney the butcher, the suburban cannibal....

  But Eli didn't move, and gradually Derek's panic subsided. The skin in the box was not a woman's skin anyway.

  "If she'd never come near me, she never would have come to their attention. But she was so pure, so loving, and they

  knew how much I trusted her. They knew they could use her as a gate because she never feared the evil in this world. She never had reason to fear a thing until she met me."

  In the box, as he spoke, the human parchment rustled, expanding slightly, finding a new position. Like Derek, it might have been settling down to listen as Eli embarked on his story.

  19

  (ELIAS'S STORY: A TRANSCRIPT)

  "Evangeline had no interest in magic when I met her. She was a cook at a handicapped center where I used to spend time after my second wife's death. While she and I had very little in common, in our hearts we were close from the first. Brother and sister, that sort of warmth.

  "We were married twice. Once by a Christian priest we both knew and respected, but first in a much older ceremony. Married in sight of the earth and the stars, our wrists bound with a red silk cord anointed with mistletoe juice and some of my semen and a little of Evangeline's blood. She wasn't a squeamish girl; she understood instantly how these things worked, though no one ever told her a thing about them, and she had never in her whole life cared to peek into the sort of books you and I take for granted.

  "She had to put up with all sorts of strange things, marrying me. My children from my first marriages had suffered the loss of their mothers, but they took to Evangeline like blood kin, and she to them. The youngest were grown and on their way soon after we married, and then we had only the years ahead of us, and grandchildren, and life here in San Diablo, listening to the bulldozers coming up through the hills where before we had heard only birds.

  "She was so patient. She put up with me and never once called me crazy, which should tell you something right there. When I spoke about where I'd been and what I'd seen in the astral, out traveling, she'd just nod and sometimes ask a question that made me wonder if she hadn't seen the places for herself. We traveled together at night sometimes, though she couldn't remember our trips in the morning. Wherever we went, everyone—every being we met in the universe—loved her instantly. She was so full of compassion, strong and pure as sunlight; you could live on her light without needing anything else.

  "Evangeline....

  "Pointless to say I miss her. That only tells them they triumphed, the sadistic ... what? I can't call them bastards; I'm not sure of their parentage. And sadism surely isn't the right word. No human terms apply. Misbegotten, yes; despicable; but maybe necessary, in their way. That's the worst of it. Like blowflies laying eggs in corpses, like maggots and bacteria causing rot and corruption and decay. All these things, so horrible to the humans whose flesh they will someday claim, are indispensable. Without the mandalas we'd drown in our own psychic waste; the fragments of ego and consciousness we leave in our wake as we pass between incarnations would be eternal, like the debris of old rockets and satellites that orbit the earth until they crash down upon it.... No god designed them, you see—they evolved. But the evolutionary forces at work in the astral realms are not so well understood as those in the physical world. I have conducted my own investigations, but my abilities are limited. We have not yet had our occult Newton or Einstein, a genius who can illuminate the basic principles of the realm. Swedenborg came close, perhaps, but his influence on following generations has been slight, and Blavatsky and her brood corrupted it so. Our sick modern culture knows less than many more so-called primitive societies that haven't invested so much into promoting spiritual blindness. Unfortunately, those societies today are all but extinct, their knowledge as lost as the genotypes once hidden in the rain forests....

  "But I was speaking of the mandalas, whose imprints mark that skin. I suspect they are organisms, or something like organisms. Archetypes of decay. There are surprisingly few of them, only thirty-seven, but each I think is a template from which an infinite number can be struck—an astral chromosome, if you will. Thirty-seven ideal forms. They seem like diatoms, single-celled, unified of purpose; yet they are conscious and quite deliberate, far more manipulative than any protozoan whipping particles of food into its mouth, though that's all we seem to be to them. Our souls are their food, the human race their hunting ground, and they breed in our souls like maggots in carrion, giving birth to flies. As I'm sure you know, our thoughts have an independent existence; thought-forms persist in a realm alongside our own, touching it everywhere. It is here that the mandalas scavenge, and to that extent they are dependent on us. But they have a greater reality than our mere thoughts.

  "Sometimes the fact of their existence makes me despise the whole cosmos. Things that once struck me as beautiful now fill me with fear by implication, for the same geometries that gave rise to beauty also bore these creatures. I hate them with a fury too great for my body to contain. Thinking of them, I feel my flesh bloating; my skin begins to stretch and crack, my blood burns hot and smoke pours from my throat. But that's bad; it does their work for them; it harms only me. I dig my grave that much deeper when I give in to rage.

  "Perhaps I could have regarded them calmly once, objectively, like a scientist, but not after the loss of Evangeline. I was responsible for her death, but they are the ones who killed her. They did it. I won't take the blame, or feed my own guilt. They'd like me to. It would rot me from the inside, and they would feed....

  "I first encountered them exactly as you did tonight, and with
about the same degree of horror—although I had a better idea of what to expect. I'd been warned by letter, though a description of the things can never quite foreshadow what you feel when you see them. There is something in us that fears and is fascinated by them, something that shies away instinctively even as it's hypnotized into staring. Just as the sight of a Buddhist mandala may cause tranquility, enjoining one to embark on the quest for enlightenment, so sight of these fiendish wheels gives us glimpses of the hells that await us. They are like thirty-seven windows into other worlds—or thirty-seven other ways of looking at this one. They are alive but also symbols—symbols that draw us into darkness as we contemplate them. The difference is that they are alive, you see, while the mandalas of Buddhism, for instance, are merely pictures to be conjured in our minds. Even calling them mandalas is a misnomer, a kind of blasphemy, for that word means 'sacred circle,' and these are only sacred to evil. Perhaps there are benevolent living mandalas as well—the opposite of these. If such exist, I have never encountered them. They must be quite rare. These are plentiful as maggots in a war zone.