by J M Bannon
“Was the woman identified as Traube?” queried Caspar.
"No, but the description of the airship fits the one Traube hired. Circumstances lead me to the same conclusion that Traube was the culprit. Ready your team, I have arranged for an airship to take you to Berlin to handle the matter as you see fit.”
“What about the airship that raided the Palace?" Caspar pressed, in an effort to gain a full understanding of the situation.
"My agents say it flew into Bohemia," replied Gorber.
"Then I will leave now in pursuit of this ship. Have inspectors comb the palace and advise me on anything that matters. The rats have left that kitchen and if they are going to their nest, I need to be close enough to observe what wall they crawl into."
14
Thursday The 7th of June 1860
8:30 p.m. Skies of Austria, The Peregrine Galley
Reidun, Tommy, Rose and Preston sat in the Galley. The group was trying to help Preston work through the clues Lorelei had left in the strongbox of the Rotegens’ desk. Preston had laid the deck of cards out on the table with the pictures facing up. “This is a puzzle to be solved with the knowledge we have in front of us. That was one of Lorelei’s tenets of a code system,” stated Preston.
“Each card has two sets of holes punched in them,” Rose announced picking up the queen of hearts and looking through the holes as she held it to the light.
“This isn’t a modern deck of cards, it is a Paris deck and has only thirty-two cards rather than fifty-two,” said Preston.
“Not French, it has twenty-four. There are a few languages with thirty-two letters: Polish, Icelandic, ah and English used to have thirty-two in the middle ages.” Preston added.
“The French choice must be meaningful, there are other card deck designs that have thirty-two cards,” continued Preston.
“Look at that, Mr. Gilchrist on the wall,” said Tommy.
The card Rose held up to the light allowed a pattern of circles to be projected through the holes on the wall.
“Pass me that paper.” Preston took the paper that Tommy had passed him and laid a card on it aligning the card and the paper at the upper left corner. He then took a pencil and rubbed it over the holes. He continued to do this for every single card. Once completed, there were two squares each, six dots high and six dots wide. The dots that were open on each card varied but none were repeated.
< Symbolic encoding?>
“French cards,” offered Preston.
“French King.” said Preston talking to Azul.
“What would this have to do with Napoleon?” asked Rose.
“That’s it, night writing!” announced Preston.
“What are you talking about?” asked Rose.
“Night writing was a precursor to braille. You see Charles Barbier developed a system for Napoleon to send messages that could be read at night without illumination. He came up with a Polybius square based on what the Greeks used for cryptography. Not very good mind you. I mean either the Polybius square for code and Barbier’s night writing. It was too complex for the average soldier so it was not used much. Later, Barbier was helpful in creating the system for braille with Louis Braille. That’s the French piece.”
“So if we lay them out by suit and card sequence in a square then we have two letters per card. That would make a key, then we need to determine the alphabet,” declared Preston.
“Let’s begin with building the key. Since we don’t know if the sequence is vertical or horizontal lets do this on one big sheet, then we can try crossing them to find out if it is to be read vertically or horizontally.
“You’re getting old and feeble we have the message” exclaimed Preston in exasperation.
“Mr. Gilchrist, who are you talking to?”
“Oh, sorry Captain, I’m talking to myself. I am a bit of a recluse and not used to having an audience,” replied Preston.
“Preston,” said Rose sternly.
He looked at her standing there giving him a cross look. “Yes, I am speaking with Azul but I am not struggling Rose. It is different, almost as if there is cooperation.”
“What’s this?” asked Reidun.
Rose just stared at Preston.
“I have a connection with a Persian Mystic who is imprisoned in the book I carry. I talk to him and he talks to me,” Preston waited for the reaction.
Captain Falk laughed out loud, “and here I was just worried about Prussian gunships shooting me out of the sky, now I’m learning he is completely crackers! This whole thing is getting out of hand. Can we just go to Königsberg, and you can play your games with imaginary friends on the ground, and I can get paid?”
“If this is about payment be clear I will pay your fee and any additional costs required to continue on our pursuit of Lorelei, but I tell you Captain, and you too, Rose, that the answers are here, not in Königsberg,” explained Preston calmly.
The Captain got up. “I’m going to my cabin to draw up the papers at one and a half times our day rate and then we will proceed. If you’re not prepared to pay the new rate, then I’ll go to the bridge and draft a course to Königsberg,” she said, walking out of the galley then turning for his answer.
“Draw up the papers,” confirmed Rose before Preston could answer.
“And bring them to me,” Preston called out to the captain before Rose had a chance to offer to pay. “Thanks, Rose.” He appreciated her understanding his drive. “Can I also get one of the large sheets of paper to create the key on?”
“So where were we, yes, our steps…”
“Come on old boy, the message is here on the ribbon.”
Although Preston was talking to the voice in his head, he had the attention of the room. Even Rose moved in closer to see where the encryption was.
Preston pulled out the hair ribbon that had been tied around the cards, smoothing it out on the table to remove the kinks created from being tied.
“You see, the strange pattern of ink markings on the ribbon. Notice how the dots are all in the middle but along the edge are these strange markings.” He reached into the satchel Rose had given him. “By the way Rose, I’m keeping this bag,” pulling out a glass tube. “The key was located in this tube, inside the Fibonacci box; another part of the puzzle. Nothing is wasted with Lorelei,” added Preston.
Everyone watched as he wrapped the ribbon around the glass tube being careful to line up the edges of the ribbon. When completed there were two lines of dot patterns, “There is the message.”
The captain came back in with a map roll and a sheet of paper and threw both on the galley table. “Here is your contract, sign it and we have an agreement. You can use the back of this old map I couldn’t find anything that was big and blank.” Preston scratched out his name on the contract and handed it back. “She looked at it and nodded her head. “I am going to bed if you decide where you want to go knock on my door, otherwise we will keep moving around over Austria and Hungary. Good night,” said Riedun.
“Thank you and good night, Captain,” replied Preston
“I’m also going to get some shut eye as I have to be on watch in four hours, this has all been very interesting Mr. Gilchrist,” said Tommy amiably.
“Same here,” added Rose.
“Before you head off for a kip, how did you hold onto the basket on the roof today, without getting ripped off with the momentum?” inquired Preston.
“Yes, I was meaning to discuss this with you. You see this bracelet.” Preston looked at Rose’s wrist and saw the primitive beaded piece with bro
wn stones and rough black ones separated at two points by a two silver beads.
“What is that about it?”
“Pāora gave this to me as we left. I thought it was a nice gesture. On the roof, I began a summoning to call upon a guardian angel to assist, and the bracelet illuminated.”
“It could be the conduit for the angelic energy to pass to you like any relic,” offered Preston.
“That’s what I thought but I didn’t feel that type of exaltation and other worldly power. I felt as if there were a hundred Maori helping me hold that basket.
The Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi, is one of the oldest of the Maori and have a rich tradition of pagan mystic works. It is said that they could levitate the black corral out of the ocean to place it on canoes, and that is how the large coral petroglyphs got on shore throughout the entire Pacific.” explained Preston.
< It is her. She transcends the practices and binds them together. All the practices tap into the same source.>
“Azul has a good observation that you are acting as a connector,” passed on Preston.
“Good night, you two. Take care of yourself so you don’t go off the deep end, and Azul you promised to behave,” added Rose as she went to her stateroom.
“I will. Let me say Rose there is something different. I won’t say I am in control but I don’t feel out of control.”
Preston couldn’t help but smile “Azul said he is respecting the deal you have with him.”
“Good night, Azul.”
* * *
Azul’s Deathless Prison
Azul had been dwelling in this prison for five hundred years. The Hermetic Brotherhood bound his soul within the gemulet on the journal, a fate of deathless life in solitary confinement.
As Preston began his work to decode the book a strange scenario developed. Preston’s thoughts permeated the walls of the labyrinth that held Azul. This was not some horrid maze – labyrinth a misnomer, in fact in over five hundred years Azul had constructed a massive palace in his mind’s eye. The only problem was there were no windows to look out or doors to exit.
Once he realized that what he was hearing was not just another reading his works or himself going insane, he tried to project out into the subject’s mind. It took time, initially it was subliminal he would project aversions to food or use a word in a sentence and it worked. His next activity was to project languages into Preston’s mind. That also worked, and it sped up the young man’s learning.
On his travel’s Azul had spent time in the Anaracum at the Serapeum, there he had seen scrolls that described how ancient beings had travelled spiritually and sometimes physically to other planes of existence. These primeval writings inspired him to fabricate a ritual that had the power to free him from this plane. Some of the practices he could remember but much of it was lost from his memory, so he had to send Preston around the world retracing his steps to gather up the necessary knowledge.
Preston was a good pupil he did the work well finding and deciphering the old scrolls then conducted the rituals. The only flaw in the plan was simple but vital, Azul had no physical manifestation in his prison. He was a spirit and his mortal vessel had turned to dust hundreds of years ago.
When Preston succeeded in his theurgy, he tore an aether rift into the wall of his prison, a reddish orange vision of the mortal plane. He watched at first, and it was like seeing the world from Preston’s point of view. Then he tried to breach the vision and push through the rift. When he did this, he drove deeper into Preston’s senses, he could smell and taste and feel again. He wept with the return of sensation, especially the warmth of the sun on his skin.
He realized that he couldn’t completely escape without possessing this man fully and he would not do that. It would not be fair to destroy or banish him to the existence of the prison for his own freedom. Azul could not resist the temptation to partake in occasionally tasting the fruits of reality. Sometimes literally eating and drinking to excess, other times he would take control to further research on how to escape the existence he was trapped in without detriment to Preston.
From time to time he would explore a new idea how he might spring himself from his prison and send Preston on a research bender. He would take over out of impatience and seek his answers.
Now Azul would honor his agreement with the Sister. He would stay on his side of the wall, but he leaned against it, listening and watching intently then saying his thoughts aloud so they would be heard in the mind of Preston. He watched the wall as if it was a magical painting of what Preston looked at, as he tried to resolve Lorelei’s puzzle.
Preston had created his key and had tried using Polish, Icelandic, and was just finishing up with Middle English with no luck. Then it hit him.
“Persian. Classic Persian, like I learned in school it has thirty-two letters.”
Azul pressed his hand on the wall and thought through the classical Persian alphabet, as Preston wrote out the letters on the back of the map. Once Preston had the letters Azul backed away. His spirit form would move away from the wall to keep him from being over controlling.
It took Preston some time to build the key but then in translation, it was working, the words were coherent although the sentence or poem was not.
ancient plot mown stop
a sandman remembered month
“Every step with this one is a game. There is a lot of planning in this,” Azul muttered pacing in front of the wall.
Azul watched as Preston scribbled out words from the grouping they had decoded, offering out words to help.
< Stop, that confuses me,> replied Preston.
It took everything in Azul’s power to not push through into Preston and take over. He had promised, so he paced and listened. Two hours later Preston uttered a conclusion:
“That’s it, man, you have it!” said Azul.
“Constantinople at Two PM. I expect she is in Constantinople and will be at the meeting place each day at Two PM to confirm you have the message.”
Azul danced around in the room, finally something easy. “Mehmed the Conqueror took Constantinople for the Ottomans then became the scourge of Hungary. One thing he did was build a mosque. Well, he built many mosques but one was built on the burial site of Sultan Eyab, the Prophet Mohammed’s Banner Man. It is located right on the Golden Horn.”
Azul watched through Preston’s eyes as he stepped on to the bridge of the airship and asked the Captain to make way for Constantinople. Sometimes an achievement like this with others was more satisfying than feeling the warm sun on your skin.
15
Friday The 8th of June 1860
8:30 AM Bridge of The Peregrine
“This makes sense to me.” argued Preston.
"That she wants to meet you in Constantinople?" Rose couldn’t fathom why they needed to go into the Ottoman Empire.
"As for the city I can’t comment, but the location is perfect, highly trafficked with open markets and a plaza to allow for observation of those that might follow. Azul’s opinion is that the city has been the crossroads for intrigue and conflict for millennia and a source of learning in the ways of the arcane," explained Preston.
"Do you think we are being watched?” Rose inquired.
“No, I mean regarding Lorelei. She has to be in peril to go to all this trouble and desires to be vigilant where we meet.”
“Well, you two are not going to be swinging into the Ottoman Empire in a basket. We are landing at the Istanbul
Aerodrome then
you two can travel into the city to have your meeting,” Captain Falk instructed from the wheel.
Preston and Rose both turned to face her from where they stood at the map table. Preston spun back to Rose searching out the bridge window of the Peregrine. On one side the Black Sea and the other the coastline of the Ottoman Empire.
"Captain Falk is correct, we need to blend in. We will stick out like sore thumbs and I just don’t mean you Rose. Europeans, especially those dressed in western garb will always get looks and we can’t have that,” observed Preston.
“We will land in time for you to make your Two o’clock today," added the Captain.
“No meeting today, we will find a room and shop for some local clothing and make a go of it tomorrow.”
Rose glanced at Preston, “You need rest, you were up all night struggling to crack her code.”
“You're right, I think I will head to my compartment and get some shut eye.”
"I have to say, you are holding up well given all the excitement yesterday and having not left your house for three years," Rose remarked with a smile "I know it took a lot of determination and fearlessness, perhaps the most was getting in the steam carriage to come see me, but all the same it is courageous what you are doing for her."
"I surprised myself. Last night was a mental strain. In the past Azul would press me to the point of losing control, however, he was patient and helpful. Wake me in three hours, I don’t want to sleep too much."
Preston withdrew from the bridge leaving Rose with Falk. Rose looked out the window over the sea. “I have experienced some wild things but flying and being this far from home is a new thrill. Tell me how you became a pilot?” asked Rose.
“Sure. Come over here.” Rose approached the pilot's chair. Falk stared out on the horizon occasionally looking at the instruments. She threw a long lever at the side of the chair, and then got up, “have a seat.”