Enoch's Device

by Joseph Finley

  A scrawny boy no older than ten was the first to notice the two monks. He darted toward one of the houses, but Dónall said something in the Aquitainian tongue that made him lose his fear and stop and chat for a moment. The boy, who wore a tiny brown skullcap atop his thick mop of hair, pointed to one of the larger houses along the main street. Dónall patted him on the head, and the boy headed toward the large house, waving them along.

  “What did you say to him?” Ciarán asked.

  “I wished him a happy Hanukkah. I don’t think he expected to hear that from a Benedictine monk. In any event, I asked him to point us to the rabbi here because that’s the man we need to see.”

  They followed the boy, who scampered up a short flight of brick steps to a sturdy wooden door, where a hand-size six-pointed Star of David had been neatly carved. The boy waved for them one last time and ducked inside. Dónall and Ciarán climbed the brick steps. A moment later, the door opened again.

  “I want nothing to do with Benedictine monks!” a man’s voice shouted in heavily accented Latin. The man who poked his head around the door stood no taller than Ciarán’s shoulder. He had a bushy gray beard, and a skullcap on his head. “Go away! Get out!”

  Dónall took a step back. “We’re not Benedictines,” he replied calmly, “despite these robes.”

  “I don’t care what—”

  “We’re Irish.”

  The old Jew scratched the curly hair beneath his skullcap. “Irish, eh? From the edge of the world?”

  “Where not a single Benedictine is to be found,” Dónall said.

  “Hm-m-m,” the Jew mused. “Then you’re obviously lost. Go south to Bordeaux, find a boat, and sail north. Have a good trip home, and do try to avoid the Vikings along the way.” The door slammed shut.

  Dónall sighed. “After meeting Prior Bernard, can you blame him?”

  “Not really,” Ciarán said.

  Dónall rapped on the door. “We need to speak with a rabbi,” he yelled.

  “I’ve no interest in religious debates!” the Jew cried from behind the door.

  “No debates,” Dónall said. “We have a historical question of sorts.”

  “Then find yourself a historian!”

  “It’s a question of Jewish history.”

  “Read the first half of your Christian Bible. It’s all there. Good day!”

  Dónall, smiled, shaking his head. “It’s not in the Torah. Perhaps the Talmud, or more obscure sources.”

  The door opened again. The Jew poked his head out. “Are all Irish so persistent?”

  “We’re a very stubborn people,” Dónall said.

  A hint of a smile cracked the Jew’s lips, revealing less than a full set of teeth. “How obscure?”

  “We’re particularly interested in the history of sacred stones that may have been passed down from Abraham.”

  The rabbi’s eyes narrowed.

  “We’re looking for a stone of light,” Ciarán added.

  The Jew began to chuckle. “My dear monks,” he said, “you seek something that has eluded Jewish mystics for more than fifteen centuries. Please, do not waste your time.”

  “Then you know what it is?” Ciarán asked.

  “Of course. It’s a gemstone etched with a single word.”

  “What word?” Dónall asked.

  The Jew’s expression grew suddenly serious. “One that no man can utter: the one true name of God.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  THE STONE OF LIGHT

  “How do you know?” Dónall asked the question before Ciarán could formulate the words. The thought that Remi and Thomas had been chasing a real historical relic, and not some chimera born of Maugis’ mind, emboldened Ciarán, but he had never imagined the relic being what the rabbi just described.

  “First,” the rabbi said, “I want to know how you have come to search for it. But please, come inside before you catch cold.”

  The old man welcomed them into a warm, sparsely furnished room. It was a cozy space, although the boy was gone, so the house must have other rooms as well. A generous layer of soot covered the angled ceiling, and a comfortable hearth crackled with a burning birch log. The air was flush with a sweet aroma. “Roasted chestnuts,” the rabbi said. “My niece makes them for me every winter.” He picked a bowl of the nuts off a round table that displayed a small, curious-looking candelabrum shaped like a bowed arc, with nine candles, only six of which were lit. “Have one?” he said to Ciarán.

  Ciarán took a chestnut, peeled away the hull, and savored its sweetish flavor. As he chewed, he noticed a large desk strewn with scrolls and parchments and several inkhorns. A colorful rug lay across the wooden floor.

  “I am Rabbi Isaac ben Ezra,” the rabbi said, making a slight bow.

  “Dónall mac Taidg,” Dónall replied, “and the lad here is named Ciarán.”

  “Please, sit.” The rabbi gestured to two empty chairs. Once Dónall and Ciarán sat, the rabbi pressed them again. “So, Dónall mac Taidg, will you answer my question?”

  “We came across a reference to it in a rare Frankish text. The author was a mystic of sorts. He wrote of a ‘Stone of Light’ and made reference to the lost Book of Enoch.”

  “That is all?”

  “Not really,” Ciarán added. “But we found the Book of Enoch.”

  The rabbi blinked in astonishment. “Say that again?”

  “We found it,” Ciarán said. “It spoke of a great and glorious device at the ends of the earth—what Maugis, the author, called the Stone of Light.”

  “Do you have the Book of Enoch?” the rabbi asked, still incredulous.

  “Unfortunately,” Dónall said, “we are not the only ones looking for it. Our rival ended up with the book.”

  “That is unfortunate,” the rabbi frowned. “I would have liked to see it.” He eyed them shrewdly. “Why do you and this rival seek the stone?”

  “It is an intellectual curiosity,” Dónall lied.

  “Hm-m-m,” the rabbi said, “I wonder. But I suppose it doesn’t matter, because you will never find this thing. You are obviously an educated man, Dónall mac Taidg. Are you aware of any works by Jewish mystics?”

  “Vaguely,” Dónall replied.

  “There is a text, the Sefer Yetzirah—the Book of Creation—that tells how Abraham received a divine testimony of mystic lore. He lived long before Moses received the Torah, so he must have received something different. Abraham was the father of Jewish mysticism, much of which focuses on the origins of the many names of God, and the various combinations of sacred letters that make up those names, all in the quest to realize the one great name of God. That is the knowledge that many believe Abraham received. If this knowledge was embodied in a physical object, one theory is that it was a gemstone.”

  “That’s what Remi said,” Ciarán whispered in Irish to Dónall, who nodded back.

  The rabbi shot them a curious look but then continued. “You realize,” he explained, “that much of this is speculation. But my teacher was a sage from Al-Andalus, the land of my birth, where they are more educated in these things. Regardless, from here we must move to the Book of Exodus, for that is where we first read of the great stones. It describes the breastplate of Aaron, the first high priest. On the breastplate were many gemstones, but only two of them—the Urim and Thummim—bore unique names. They were to be worn over Aaron’s heart when he spoke with God. The Thummim was called the Stone of Perfection, or Stone of Truth. That is not the one you are interested in. You seek the other stone, the Urim, translated literally as ‘Stone of Light.’”

  A wave of astonishment crashed over Ciarán: the stone was mentioned in the Bible.

  Dónall gaped at the rabbi. “You believe the Urim is the same as Abraham’s stone?”

  “The light is a focus of Jewish mysticism,” the rabbi explained. “Creating Light was the first act of God. It is the very essence of creation. If the father of mysticism had a sacred stone, it would have been the Urim, passed down through a
long line of mystics, through Aaron to the kings of Israel, most notably King Solomon. And that is where we find the likes of the Urim again. The story comes from the Talmud and tells of a stone called the Schamir, or ‘lightning stone’—a gem that radiated light. Is this the Urim? I think the similarities suggest they must be. Solomon set the Schamir into a ring.”

  “The Seal of Solomon,” Dónall breathed.

  “Quite observant,” the rabbi replied. “According to legend, it was a ring etched with the name of God.”

  Dónall rubbed his forehead. “There are stories that Solomon used that ring to subdue demons.”

  “A ring holding the Urim would have bestowed such power.”

  Ciarán listened intently to the two scholars, riveted by their dialogue. It was the same fascination he had felt hearing Remi and Lucien unravel the secrets of Enoch.

  “What happened to the stone after Solomon?” Ciarán asked.

  The rabbi held up his palms. “I sense that this is more than a mere intellectual curiosity. You have not been frank with me. Before I tell you any more, I want to know why you seek the Urim.”

  Ciarán looked to Dónall, who was already unfastening the straps to his book satchel. He lifted out the Book of Maugis and set it on the table before the candelabrum. A glow from the flickering candles danced across the golden ankh etched into the cover. The rabbi’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the tome. He reached for it, then pulled back his hand as if afraid to touch it.

  “Its author,” Dónall explained, “was Maugis d’Aygremont, one of the twelve paladins of Charlemagne—an expert, you could say, in the more arcane lore. It was written near the end of the eighth century.”

  “May I?” the rabbi said, touching the cover. His hand trembled.

  “Of course.”

  The rabbi opened the book and began leafing carefully through the timeworn pages. He scanned paragraphs of scrawled Latin, squinting to read the poorly penned words, eventually abandoning the effort and delving deeper into the book. He stopped when he reached a page decorated with Fae symbols. He seemed captivated by the flowing beauty of the Fae script. With a crooked finger, he traced one of the letters from its stem to the arch, to its brilliant hooked serif.

  “What is this script?” he asked reverently.

  “According to the author, it is derived from the tongue of the angels.”

  The rabbi looked up. “You believe this?”

  “The author claimed to have known one, of a sort,” Dónall said. “Hidden among those symbols is an obscure reference to an event that occurs every thousand years—an apocalyptic event reminiscent of that described in the book of Revelation. The first time it occurred would have been three thousand years ago, with the fall of legendary Atlantis. The second would have been around the reign of King David or his son Solomon. The third would have been around the time of Christ’s birth.”

  “And the fourth,” Ciarán added, “would be around now.”

  The rabbi shook his head as if he had bitten a sour grape. “So this is some Christian prophecy you have fixated on.”

  “Not exactly,” Ciarán said. “The prophecy is supposedly written among the stars, embedded in the signs of the zodiac—a good while before there were Christians.”

  “Ah,” the rabbi said. “Astrological foolishness.”

  “For years, I was skeptical, too,” Dónall said. “And I still am, to a degree. But of late, everyone who has chased this mystery has been murdered by people who believe very seriously in the truth of these things: the rivals I spoke of—men who seemingly will stop at nothing to ensure that the Stone of Light is never found.”

  “And still you pursue it?”

  “It is supposedly a key to this prophecy,” Dónall explained. “A linchpin, if you will—a thing needed to survive the prime event of this conflict.”

  “And the author does not tell you how to find such an important thing?”

  “There may well be more answers hidden in this book,” Dónall said, “but we don’t even know where to start looking—which brought us to you.”

  The rabbi rested his chin on his hands and stared into the flickering candelabrum. Then he closed his eyes as if deep in thought. After a moment, he opened them again and sighed. “What you have just told me seems very dubious. But even if it were true, I am afraid I can be of little more use. For the Urim is gone, lost in the sands of history, just like the vessel that contained it.”

  “What vessel?” Ciarán pressed.

  “The holiest of all vessels. Built by Moses, overlaid with gold, and topped with cherubim, to carry the testimony of God’s covenant.”

  Ciarán could hardly believe his ears. “The Ark of the Covenant—the chest that contained the Ten Commandments?”

  “We know that the Ark held more than just the tablets of the Ten Commandments,” the rabbi explained, “but also the most sacred objects of the Levite priests: a golden urn of manna from heaven, Aaron’s rod, and, undoubtedly, the Urim. But when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and plundered the temple, the Ark, along with the Urim, disappeared into legend. So, you see, to seek the Urim is to seek the lost Ark—as futile a quest, I assure you.”

  Ciarán looked to Dónall, hoping for a response, but Dónall shook his head, looking dejected.

  “Well,” the rabbi said, rising from his chair, “that is all the time I have. I am sorry I could not be of more help.” Dónall returned the book to its satchel, and the old man ushered his two visitors from their chairs to the front door. “Remember what I told you about the voyage from Bordeaux,” the rabbi said, clapping Dónall’s back. “Watch for Vikings. Good day.” The door closed.

  Standing outside the rabbi’s house, they felt the wintry air gnaw at their bones. Snowflakes fell like frozen tears.

  “Why would Maugis intend such a wild-goose chase?” Ciarán asked.

  Dónall shook his head. “Maybe he was mad.”

  “If so, then Remi died in vain—and my parents, too.”

  “Perhaps they did,” Dónall said, dispirited.

  “I don’t want to believe that.”

  Dónall looked at him fondly. “Now you’re starting to sound like your father.”

  “Maybe he was onto something. I’ve got an idea.”

  “Speak.”

  Ciarán looked Dónall in the eyes. “Only after you show me all the secrets in that book.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  FAE DEALINGS

  In their austere, drafty guest room at Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand, Ciarán and Dónall huddled over the Book of Maugis d’Aygremont, which lay open between them. Beside the book burned two tallow candles, their flames flickering in the draft of a narrow window that sucked in the night’s chill like a long-drawn breath.

  “Go back to where Maugis talks about the prophecy,” Ciarán said.

  “If you insist.” Dónall leafed through the ancient vellum until he found a stained blank page. Then, taking the small milky-hued crystal from a pocket in his robes, he closed his eyes and blew on it, whispering the Fae word that Ciarán had heard twice before: “Eoh.”

  The crystal flashed brightly before dimming to a warm glow.

  Ciarán looked on with familiar awe as lines of verse appeared on the empty page. He read the first verse aloud, below the words “The Prophecy of Arcanus.”

  Dark cycle of a thousand years, when the Dragon is freed. The Prophecy is etched in the heavens. The Sphinx is the key.

  This time, the meaning of the first two lines struck Ciarán like a thunderbolt. “Remi said that according to scripture, the Dragon must be freed from his prison after a thousand years.”

  “He did,” Dónall replied. “And so did John of Patmos. He wrote in the book of Revelation that ‘When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them for battle.’ Coupled with the cycle of a thousand years and our now familiar riddle about the zodiac and the sph
inx, Thomas and Remi developed their theory of the prophecy.”

  Ciarán nodded, staring now at the second verse, beneath the word “Salvation”:

  In Virgo’s seed of Charlemagne’s line, and Enoch’s device, where the answer lies, in the whisper of breath, or all hope dies.

  “The last two lines concern Enoch’s device,” Ciarán observed.

  “But where does that leave us?” Dónall asked. “All that remains is the hieroglyph and its reference to the Stone of Light at the ends of the earth. And even if the stone is the Urim, as our good rabbi believes, the trail ends in ancient Babylon, and from there only God knows.”

  “But we know one thing,” Ciarán said, revealing the idea that had struck him outside the rabbi’s house. “If this prophecy is real, then a thousand years ago, someone found Enoch’s device. After all, the world’s still here, right? Don’t we just need to figure out who found it and where they went?”

  Dónall blew on the crystal again. The light winked out, and the words on the page disappeared into the stained vellum. “And how do you propose we do that?”

  “What about the other blank pages in the book?”

  “They contain either Fae words or instructions on how to use them. Maugis hid his most precious knowledge on the blank pages, almost as a rite of passage, forcing the seeker to learn how to summon the soul light before being able to uncover the greater secrets of the Fae.”

  Ciarán gazed at Dónall in the flickering candlelight. “Then don’t you think it means something that Maugis hid his reference to the prophecy in the same way?”

  Dónall looked away, frustration knitting his brow.