The Malice Box
Page 43
‘Omnia vincit amor! ’
‘Stop! No!’
‘Omnia vincit amor! Love! Conquers! All!’
He opened his eyes. The eye recoiled in fear as it flared around Adam’s head. But then Adam smiled.
And Robert saw the innermost plan that Adam had been shielding from the darkness, from the Iwnw, until the last possible moment.
Robert looked into the eye. Spoke into it.
‘I understand.’
‘What?’
‘Adam wants me to kill him.’
‘No.’
‘He realizes he is incapable of escaping you.’
‘No.’
‘He has tricked you all along. He has been waiting for the moment when I would be psychically capable of defeating him. Spiritually powerful enough to do it.’
‘No.’
‘It is the only way to break your power and disarm the Ma’rifat’. This is how Adam will save everyone, at the cost of his own life.’
‘No. Wrong. Now you will die.’
‘No. When he plunged his arms into the column of fire of the Ma’rifat’, he was trying to slow it down. To delay the detonation. He succeeded. And when at the last moment you truly had taken him over, Terri stopped him from killing me. To give his plan one last chance to work. She knew all along.’
‘No. Now die.’
‘No. OMNIA! VINCIT! AMOR!’
A scream of primal evil exploded from the centre of the eye as it blew apart in a flare of yellow-and-blue flame.
Robert stared into Adam’s eyes. Adam saw that he had understood. Robert held his friend’s stare for a moment without time. Then he pushed Adam on to the third rail and stepped back.
Adam’s body jerked upright, his head snapping back, and for endless seconds he seemed to resist the power of the coursing electricity crackling and spitting through him, standing upright and swaying at the knees as acrid smoke and a stench of burned flesh filled the sweltering air of the underground station.
Then Adam rolled his eyes back in his head and let himself go, a hand raised in gratitude. He fell lifeless at Robert’s feet.
The Ma’rifat’ slowed, its harmonies now haunting, beautiful.
Robert knelt down and closed Adam’s eyes. Then he dragged the body across the tracks and lifted it up on to the platform. He stepped across to Katherine and cradled her in his arms, stroking her hair. She was still barely conscious. He wept for a long moment for his friend Adam. He saw images of his crazy games, his wild heart, his endless imagination, his kindness and indomitable sense of fun. Then Robert saw the sickly yellow light that had consumed him, his unshakeable will to fight to the last moment, the steepling, self-sacrificing risks he had taken to ensure the detonation would be halted at the last minute.
‘I’m sorry, my friend,’ he whispered. ‘Thank you.’
He walked up the stairs to the Ma’rifat’.
He stood over the beautiful machine, its rims now slowly spinning, the column of fire extinguished, and removed its keys, one by one, from their slots around its glowing body.
When it was done, he called Horace. ‘The Ma’rifat’ is disarmed. Terri and Adam are dead. They gave their lives.’
‘Dear heaven. Get out of there. Then please come to me. Bring the Ma’rifat’ so I can destroy it.’
Epilogue
New York, Saturday, September 4, 2004
Horace, his hands protected by thick black rubber gloves, lifted the bullet casing, the first of the seven minor keys of the Ma’rifat’, and dropped it gently into the large vat of sulphuric acid on the rough wooden table in the middle of his apartment. The windows were wide open to disperse the fumes. With a violent hiss and a plume of red smoke, the key dissolved.
‘We honour you, Adam and Terri, and remember you as warriors,’ he said in solemn tones. Robert and Katherine held hands and echoed Horace’s words.
Horace next took the vesica piscis that had hung around Terri’s neck, the second key, and dropped it into the acid. Its melting form floated for a moment on the surface and then disappeared with a sound like a sigh.
‘Adam and Terri, we honour and remember you as lovers,’ he said. ‘We remember the child taken from you by the Iwnw.’
Horace went through all the minor keys, relating each one to an attribute of their two dead friends in their fight to halt the detonation of the Ma’rifat’.
His skull and back injuries from the fight at the obelisk now healed by Robert, Horace was preparing to spend several weeks on retreat to study the use of the full set of words of power Robert had shared with him, and meditate on what lessons could be learned for future clashes with the Brotherhood of Iwnw. Katherine and Robert, now sharing the same bedroom again, had asked him to preside over an informal renewal of their wedding vows when he returned.
When Horace picked up the Malice Box, the tiny round drum that had shattered Robert’s previous life and awoken him to a new life richer than any he had dreamed possible, Katherine gave a deep sigh and began to sob quietly.
‘Adam, for all your games, your riddles and puzzles, your challenges and provocations, your madness and your questing, restless, good heart, thank you,’ Robert said, and his throat thickened and tears filled his eyes.
Horace carefully dropped the small Malice Box into the acid, which bubbled hungrily and drew the metallic-glass drum into its maw with a loud crack.
‘Before you leave, I will give you the keys to a place where Adam’s papers are stored,’ Horace said. ‘There may also be some safety-deposit boxes to explore. He told me some time ago, Robert, that he had named you as the executor of his will.’
‘Thank you,’ Robert said.
‘There are manuscripts, heaven only knows what else. They will have to be gone through.’
‘I can do that,’ Robert said.
‘You should. There will be other battles. You may find something useful in his jottings.’ Horace paused for a moment. ‘Now. The main task.’
He carefully lifted the Ma’rifat’, which he’d held in safe keeping since Thursday when Robert had brought it out of the subway station, and held it over the vat of acid. ‘In the name of the millions of souls whose lives were spared by the actions of these days, and in the name of Adam and Terri who gave their lives to halt the detonation of the Device, we state the words of power that give us mastery over its component elements, and we commit it to destruction,’ Horace intoned. ‘Quaero arcana mundi.’
Katherine and Robert answered in unison: ‘Vitriol.’
Horace lowered the Ma’rifat’ very gently into the acid. Cracks and pops gave way to a deep, violent hissing, and fumes of green, orange, red and yellow flew into the air. He lowered it all the way to the bottom of the vat and released it. The acid churned and spat.
‘Flamma unica clavis mundi,’ Horace said.
Katherine and Robert replied: ‘Omnia vincit amor.’