The Malice Box

by Martin Langfield

  Horace looked at her with amazement. ‘I had reached a similar conclusion. It would have to be reasonably near the red gold hidden at the Fed, in order to be able to draw upon its magnifying power. How did you work it out?’

  ‘Tariq hid something at the centre of all the waypoint data. It was a number suggested by all the other waypoint numbers, based on the fourth key, that magic cube covered in numbers. I don’t think our effort to contact the Minotaur was in vain after all. I think I reached Tariq long enough for him to drop it into my mind, somehow.’

  Robert stood and stared at the map Horace had drawn, impatience ripping through his body. He wanted to move, to attack. The cacophony in his head was giving way to a greater and greater sense of single purpose and power. He pointed to the island’s southern tip. ‘If we know it’s down there, why aren’t we already on our way to stop it?’

  ‘Because if you go now, you will be killed. You need to understand one or two more things. Then it will be time. Very soon.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Firstly, the trials. I arranged their sequence, chose their content, so that you would follow the same pattern through Manhattan that the maker of the Ma’rifat’ had laid out for its destruction – the Tree of Life, except in reverse. By tapping the powers unleashed by each trial, you would be dispelling the shadows from each level of the tree. Reclaiming the pattern for the good. And building the power necessary to erase it completely, at the end, by defeating the Iwnw and halting the detonation.’

  ‘I walked the Tree of Life, bottom to top.’

  ‘Yes, you walked its key levels, eachone corresponding to a trial. The trials were to prepare you for a final ordeal, the fight of your life, within the next hour. Only the worthy may enter the arena. To make it clearer, Robert, please come and lie down on top of the map.’

  ‘What?’

  Horace’s voice rose with impatience, aching with pain. ‘Just do what I say! We are almost out of time.’

  Robert bowed his head in apology and lay down on top of the map, his face to the sky.

  ‘With the top of your head at Rockefeller Center, it will help you understand, and it will then allow me to perform a ritual of power.’

  Robert felt a deep surge of energy rippling into his body from the ground.

  ‘First, Trial by Earth. You were nearly killed on the very first day, were you not? Had to fight for your physical survival. Sinking your fingers into the earth of graves. Looking out over Ground Zero. Thinking about how we respond to being attacked. Responding to death. Then, the great tidal power of sexuality: Trial by Water. You’ll note that Mercer Street corresponds to the area of your groin. Then egotism, autonomy, self-esteem and self-centredness: Trial by Fire. You refused to be blackmailed, threw Adam’s attempt to control you back in his face. Guts.’

  ‘Then I went to Union Square.’

  ‘The place of the spiritual heart. The meeting place of the physical and spiritual selves. In the Judaic tradition, it is called Tiferet, meaning beauty, or Rahamim, meaning compassion. In mystical Islam, it is called Qalb, meaning heart. You’ll see it corresponds to your actual heart.’

  ‘This exists in Islam too?’

  ‘Of course. All true soul work in all traditions leads to this place. In the fourth level you begin to transcend the ego, selfishness, begin to live more fully for others rather than yourself. You can only transcend a healthy ego, naturally. A sick ego prevents you from getting there. It sucks everything in. Union Square was the Trial by Air.’

  ‘Why air?’

  ‘The least substantial of the first four elements. The one most likely to fly away on its own unless it is tethered to the earth by the others. Compassion alone is nothing unless it is earthed in action. Feeling sorry for the little boy would not have saved him. Only leaping into the forest of boots and legs and shielding him with your own body saved his life.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Level five. Trial by Ether, meaning an element even more insubstantial than air, yet pervading everything, like an energy field. It stands for the interconnectedness of all things. It is the place of expression, creativity, situated at the level of your throat, the place where you speak your truth. It is reached only through a dynamic balance of the first four elements. This is where you begin to discover to what extent you may actually create the world around you. It is where you learn the true meaning of intention, which is the combination of your will and your ability to create. It is the state sought by the ancient alchemists, a level of perception where you see how consciousness and matter are two sides of the same coin. It is how you stopped the bomb.’

  ‘The sixth level. Trial by Mind, the level of insight and understanding. Inner vision. The third eye, the vestigial eye that is the pineal gland. The New York Public Library is at the level of your forehead, and it is where you encountered the blind visionary Borges. This is where you acquire the power to heal. It was also at this level that you received the wound to your head. You saved yourself from Katherine’s shot when I was not able to protect you.’

  ‘It was the only time the Iwnw reached me,’ Katherine said. ‘Robert, I’m so sorry. I truly thought for a moment I’d killed you.’

  Robert didn’t reply, his mind far away in the sky.

  ‘Then Trial by Spirit. The seven-pointed star stands for esoteric knowledge, Gnosis, learning what is secret or hidden. Perhaps that’s why many police forces use it for their badges, quaintly enough. It is at the crown of your head, as is Rockefeller Center.’

  Robert brought himself back to earth. ‘So the city and my body and the trials are all, in a sense, now one. How do we use this, Horace?’

  ‘By going directly back down the Tree of Life to fight the Iwnw. You will now be able to tap into the raw power of the ley line that runs down its core, down the middle column of the Tree. And you will have your own fully awakened powers, drawing on the forces of earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind and spirit.’

  Robert understood. He had been torn apart in the trials, his former identity stripped down and destroyed. And in its place he could now feel the fullness of a new self growing from the ruins of his former fear-bound, sleepwalking persona. He could feel light bursting from within him as his new body was stitched together, connected to his full powers within, connected to the full world without, the gravity of the earth and the boundless love of the heavens.

  ‘Now for the ritual of power.’

  Horace intoned the words with the greatest solemnity: ‘We have walked the Path of Seth. We have dismembered this man, and now we rebuild his sundered body in the light of renewal. Where shall we find a head?’

  Robert replied: ‘I saw the same head twice, on the first trial and the third. The head of the Green Man, vegetation springing from his face.’

  ‘Renewal,’ Horace said, using the metal staff to paint a figurative head over Robert’s. ‘Where shall we find arms?’

  ‘The fifth trial, and the sixth. The severed arm holding the sword at the Worth Monument, and the arm holding the hammer at the General Society where we met Terri.’

  Horace traced new arms over Robert’s supine form. With each addition to his body of light, Horace drew the corresponding form in the air above him.

  ‘Strike with righteous power. Where shall we find a heart?’

  ‘The fourth trial. Union Square. The four conjoined hearts I found that made up a compass rose. Katherine, me, Adam, Terri.’

  ‘Compassion. Where shall we find legs?’

  ‘The first trial. Legs of gold.’

  ‘May they carry you to your quarry. Where shall we find a spine?’

  ‘Trials six and seven. The caduceus carved into the steps at the New York Public Library, and the one carried by Hermes at Rockefeller Center. The magic wand of Hermes, and of Tiresias, represents the spine, from the earthly powers at its base to the divine powers at its summit. It therefore also represents the Path.’

  ‘With this spine may you stand, and never fall again. This caduceus re
presents also the central column of the Tree of Life drawn on this city. Through it flow the power of the ley line and the power of the awakened Robert Reckliss, twin snakes of the physical and spiritual selves. Where shall we find, finally, a skin of light?’

  ‘The first trial again. The Man of Swirling Light. The angel of the seven seals.’

  Horace painted swirling whorls of light over Robert’s body.

  ‘You have now unsealed the seven secrets. The son of the dismembered man is born, and he is the old man reborn of himself, made new in the light of the Path. With what will you fight the Brotherhood of Iwnw, those who dispute the ownership of the Path?’

  Robert stood up, feeling power blazing from his body. He took the staff from Horace. ‘With love. With love, and the staff of Hermes.’

  ‘What do you hear?’

  ‘The purest birdsong.’

  ‘You have come through the darkest night, and you have completed the Trial by Spirit.’

  Katherine stared at him, tears in her eyes. He took her hand and kissed it.

  ‘Look what it nearly cost me.’

  ‘I love you, Robert.’

  ‘I love you, darling.’

  Robert turned to Horace. ‘What more do we need to know before we go?’

  ‘You may now learn a sacred secret. In the preparation of materials suchas red gold, and the metallic glass known as the Philosopher’s Stone, certain words of power are used. When pronounced in the correct order, by an adept in a state of high spiritual attainment, they will confer mastery over the materials.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘I don’t know. But you do.’

  ‘What are you talking about? I don’t know any words of power.’

  ‘You know them because you have heard them at some point in your contact with the Path. When you need them, you will remember them. You must.’

  ‘There were some words like that in the Newton document that Adam swore to protect,’ Katherine said. ‘But half of them were scratched out. Adam never told me what they were.’

  ‘The other half will come to you when you need it. Those are the words of power for the Stone, the vitreous metal.’

  ‘What about the red gold? You must have known the words for that.’

  ‘Lawrence and I each knew half, and I can share my words with you. They are quaero arcana mundi: “I seek the secrets of the world.” But I was not permitted to know Lawrence’s words, and I have found no record of them since his death, alas.’

  Katherine shrieked in frustration: ‘How can Robert possibly know them, then?’

  ‘Lawrence would almost certainly have tried to communicate them before he died. If so, you will remember in time. Trust the Path.’

  Katherine and Robert helped Horace to one of the benches, where he sat down with a gasp of pain.

  Robert asked his final questions: ‘Any idea what this final waypoint looks like? What we are looking for?’

  Horace pointed to the obelisk looming above them. ‘Not to put too fine a point on it, we are at the masculine end of the polarity. You must go to the opposing end, to an intensely female space.’

  ‘Female? How?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. I have been searching for any psychic echo or impressions of this place for some time. It is well shielded. All I have been able to see is that there is a female space near where you started. You must find it. Curved. Rounded. Hidden.’

  ‘Adam took all the triggers for the Ma’rifat’. Why doesn’t he just detonate it as soon as he gets there?’

  ‘He could. But the explosion would be smaller than the Iwnw desire. He needs you there to give it the full force of a soul bomb, but you are also the only one who can stop it. It’s a risk they are willing to take.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘It will explode today, within the hour, unless you disarm it, it is true. But to achieve the greater conflagration his masters require, he needs your power. The power we have refined and built in you over the last week. The power to defeat him, which can also be twisted to help him. To achieve what they wish, they need a Unicorn. More precisely, they need the sacrifice of a Unicorn.’

  ‘I’m ready,’ said Katherine. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Children, remember everything Adam has told you. Remember all his games. Even without his knowing, they may together make a key. A code. A metaphor. They may yet save your lives. They may yet save your souls.’

  Horace closed his eyes for a moment. Robert felt pain flaring from him.

  ‘Robert, my child. The Path has led you to its summit. To love, to selflessness, to the divine spark within. To God, if you care for the term. And in this case, to single combat. A fight to the death. No quarter. You must prevail.’

  Robert looked into the eyes of his old friend. ‘Thank you, Horace.’

  ‘Now go, my friends. I cannot leave here. I am too injured to go on. I am growing weak. I will work to shield you.’

  Katherine took Horace by the hand. ‘Do you need a doctor? Can we do anything?’

  Horace patted her hand and smiled.

  ‘The care I need cannot be obtained in a medical hospital, my dear girl. I have always been protected. Dear Lawrence gave his life to protect me and Robert. Now it is my turn to do the protecting. Godspeed. Go.’

  Katherine and Robert ran east through the park, through Greywacke Arch, to Fifth Avenue. The first vehicle they saw was a white stretch limousine bedecked in white ribbons, making its way home from what looked like wedding duty. Katherine frantically flagged it down.

  ‘Can you take us downtown? It’s an emergency. Quickly? Here’s money.’ She pushed a handful of twenty-dollar bills at the driver through the lowered passenger-side window.

  ‘There’s been a party in the back,’ the driver said, taking the cash. ‘It was a crazy wedding. I don’t think there’s anyone left back there, but you might want to check. Bridesmaids. Groom’s friends. Wild kids wanting to go all night. I think I just dropped the last ones off.’

  Robert and Katherine climbed in. Empty bottles rolled around on the floor amid discarded party hats, pizza boxes and strands of dried silly string. The seats were sprinkled with sequins and flower petals.

  ‘Just like our wedding,’ Katherine said. ‘Take us straight down Fifth Avenue, then straight down Broadway, to Maiden Lane. Fast.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Do you want some privacy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The driver pressed a switch and raised the partition behind him. Then he gunned the engine, jolting Katherine and Robert back in their seats.

  They tore past isolated bands of early-morning tourists, Republican delegates out for a jog, the occasional lost protester. They passed Rockefeller Center, the New York Public Library, the Empire State Building.

  Robert tried to go over the phone call from Lawrence, and his suicide note, looking for messages. Then he tried Adam’s games, and the play…

  Katherine closed her eyes and dropped into a deep meditation, her breathing shifting to a profound, regular rhythm. The fear and anger that had surrounded her in a dark aura the previous night were gone, and Robert could feel her rebounding in confidence and determination.

  He gazed out the window at the souvenir stores. Tiny toy Empire States, Chryslers, World Trade Centers… he understood his sickness now. He had actually been getting well. He had been perceiving the trials to come, the mystery of the sacred pattern threading through the streets of Manhattan, even before his awakening. And there was something more. Some buildings were directly affecting his senses, singing to him in harmonies he’d never heard before.

  As they passed 29th Street, a building leaped out at him from the left like an oncoming train. Number 261. Burgundy, blue and gold. Hexagons and cubes and ziggurats hit him straight between the eyes. He gasped, looking away. He was still getting used to the intensity of his amplified perception. And intuitively he now understood it. Some buildings were dead, hitting him just with flat coldness. Others were jacking straight into his central nervous
system. The buildings most affecting him were in various styles of Art Deco, the ones that borrowed motifs and proportions from ancient sacred buildings: towering monumental gateways, zigzag thunderbolt forms, steepling vertical facades from Egyptian and Central American temples. He felt them as physical expressions of the Path he had followed, as though his experiences had been sculpted and frozen in time for all to see. He saw new harmonies of proportion, colour and space, and he realized that the Path had been encoded into sacred architecture many thousands of years ago.

  His whole soul was singing. He could feel Katherine in new ways, her presence next to him vibrant, magical. He reached out and took her hand, and she gripped it tightly as he looked into her eyes.

  ‘Kat, I’m sorry I was unfaithful to you. I truly am. And I’m especially sorry for some of the things I said when we argued over it. About wanting to do it again. About –’

  She put a finger to his lips. ‘If you hadn’t, none of us would be alive now. I understand what had to happen.’ She took both his hands in hers. ‘I am still very angry with Horace and Adam for not being able to think of a better way to get you through the second trial. It could have been handled differently. I feel sorry for Terri with her cancer. And I’m sorry too for some things I’ve said in the last nine months. For the coldness between us. For the distance, since I lost the baby.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault we lost Moss.’

  ‘I felt it was. Now I know better.’

  He reached into his pocket and took out his wedding band. ‘Would you put this back on for me, please?’

  She looked into his eyes, searching into the deepest recesses of his heart. For a moment, even as he opened himself fully to her gaze, he feared she would refuse. Then she slid the ring on to his finger. They shared a long kiss, and then Katherine half turned so she could lean back into him, his arms around her. They gazed in silence at the passing buildings of Broadway, each preparing for the danger that was to come.