“I’ve figured that out, finally. Don’t you know how hard it is to police an entire planet over five hundred millennia? Let me tell you, it’s a real bitch.” I realized I was sounding querulous, but figured I’d earned it. “It’s a wonder we get anything done at all. Particularly stuck in a cell in the basement of a building in seventeenth-century Isfahan. Now if you just let me out—”
Rachel muttered something that indicated that she was still suspicious about my bona fides, but Solomon simply said, “How?”
“Do I have to think of everything?” I said aggrievedly.
“It would certainly help.”
Before I could think of a wise reply, we all heard the stair creak beneath an abnormally heavy step. Solomon and Rachel vanished. The door groaned open, and Alphonse hauled me out of the cell. He carried me up to the top floor, kneeled me down, tied my hands and feet, and left me alone with Mann and Ngargh.
Mann held a scarlet silk cord in his hands. He stroked it. “See how it clings, Ngargh?” he said. “Only the best ones do that.” He put it around my neck. Ngargh watched with interest. “Doing this is a little tricky. It’s harder than it looks. When you’re done with the messy part, there’s a few chants, the consecration of the pickax, and the sacrifice of sugar. Nothing to it, really, but it makes for a nice change of pace.”
“Do proceed,” Ngargh said.
The cord tightened. Suddenly, the door crashed open. Mann jumped back and dropped the cord. Standing in the doorway was an awe-inspiring figure. It was the Bishop of Chartres, in the full glory of ecclesiastical vestments, chasuble and stole in gold and scarlet, a mitre on his head, and a gold crosier in his hand. For the first time since I’d seen him, he was unmistakably a Bishop. He made the sign of the cross at us.
“My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves,” he thundered.
“Save it for the marks, Bishop,” Mann said, as he pieked the cord back up. “Close the door, you’re letting in a draft.”
“You have committed a gross sacrilege and are beyond forgiveness, R. E. Mann.”
Mann looked irritated. “Hey look, Bishop, don’t you know your own product? Forgiveness is one of the biggest selling points of—” The heavy gold-encrusted crosier made a misleadingly soft thunk as it struck Mann’s head and knocked him across the room into a corner, where he lay sprawled and unconscious. Ngargh backed into the opposite corner, trembling. “I believe I expressed an interest in some rather less violent devotions. Zen Buddhism, for example. This is not to my liking. No, no indeed.”
The Bishop stared at what he had done, now at a loss. There was a huge crash and someone else came through the door, though he didn’t bother to open it first. It was Alphonse, who came through as if fired from a cannon. A very large cannon. He fell on his back but was on his feet in an instant, completely unaffected by his unusual mode of entry. Rachel and Solomon ran in after him. They darted around Alphonse like rabbits around a bear. Rachel grabbed his knee, barely having to bend down to do so, and Solomon bounced high into the air and kicked him at the angle of his jaw. His head snapped back. Rachel’s fingers went under his kneecap, and he screamed and toppled. They both played soccer with his head for a while, and he was finally silent. I was not able to do anything but kneel and watch, which was fine, because there was no way I could have helped.
Solomon came up behind me and cut my bonds with a knife. “Where did you learn to do that?” I asked.
“Where I grew up, Polish soldiers are a constant problem. We are not allowed to carry arms, but we have learned to deal with it.” As an afterthought, he walked over and punched Ngargh, who fell over, kicked once, and was still. “Now we must try to escape with our lives.”
The Bishop shrugged out of his robes. “These are most strange,” he said. “So soft, like a lady’s undergarments. Satin and silk. See?” I felt the material. It did indeed feel like lingerie, though how the Bishop knew what lingerie felt like I did not ask. I examined the insignia on the buttons. After a moment it came to me. “Ah,” I said, “sixteenth-century Italian. Borgias, Medicis. They did believe in comfort in everything, even their vestments, when their families succeeded in making them a Bishop.” I smiled to myself. Did wearing these make the Bishop of Chartres a transvestmentite? I suppose that that then made Kinbarn a transectual. I wished there were someone around to appreciate the joke, though on second thought I suspected that such a person might be hard to find.
Solomon and Rachel took some time to destroy the golden calf. It turned out to be gold sheet over a figure of wood, which broke satisfyingly into splinters.
When they had finished, Solomon led us all through several back passages and out into the street. At his insistence, we carried Mann along with us. He would not listen to any arguments to the contrary, and he and the Bishop seemed to have reached some sort of agreement, so I was outvoted. Mann was heavy, and we kept trading him back and forth. We crossed over the tree-lined Chahar Bagh, the avenue that led south, and into a tangle of houses and shops. Several passersby stopped to stare at us and our burden.
“Poor fat Mustafa,” Solomon said sadly, loudly enough for everyone to hear. “The heat. Too much wine.”
“A load,” I said, enjoying the act. “He is a great, sodden load.”
“His wives will slaughter us,” Solomon said. “But as his friends, we have no choice.”
“Woe is us,” I agreed. “His wives are cruel.”
“And he is heavy.”
Our litany turned the unconscious body of Mann from a victim into a figure of fun. Shopkeepers laughed and waved to us, and small boys ran alongside, making fun of fat Mustafa. Solomon cuffed them and chased them away. “Insolent children! Do not make fun of your elders.”
We entered a cul-de-sac. Solomon felt in front of himself carefully, his face grave. He then signaled to us, and we brought the body forward. Gently, maintaining a precise angle, he rolled it toward the wall. It was a difficult matter to send someone through a wormhole without actually carrying him through yourself. Mann, just waking up and muttering, vanished down the wormhole. I looked up at Solomon. Sweat had beaded his brow, and he was shaking. Rachel, silent for once, rubbed his back. The Bishop avoided my glance.
“It is a terrible thing,” Solomon said. “But necessary.”
I was starting to suspect something. “Where did you send him?”
“A place,” he said. “A certain place.”
“Where?”
He stared off into space. “I told you that there are certain wormhole exits known to local inhabitants, who use them for their own purposes, like those men who attacked you. The other end of this wormhole is in Mexico, in the mountains north of Guadalajara, in the year 5304 by our calendar, 1543 by yours. The Spaniards have everywhere prohibited the old religion, which entails human sacrifice to the god Huitzilopochtli. The sacrifice is followed by a cannibal ritual, an important part of the diet of the priesthood. Victims have grown scarce. Yet a small temple survives, even flourishes, in a hidden valley, a place where mysterious people suddenly appear from nowhere.”
I thought about Mann’s fate and shuddered. He’d somehow never realized his game of religion had turned serious.
The Bishop choked. “May God have mercy on our souls.”
“I would not be surprised if He doesn’t,” Rachel said. She tugged at Solomon’s sleeve. “Let us go. Chelm is far from here.” Solomon nodded silently and, not looking at us, allowed her to lead him away. They walked out the end of the street, turned the corner, and were gone. The Bishop and I just looked at each other.
“Did you manage to get it?”
He reached into his shirt, and let me catch just a glimpse of the Tunic of the Virgin. “Martin will aid me in replacing the fraud that lies within the reliquary at the Cathedral. He is an accepting soul, and miracles are of little consequence to him, as they are to any man of true faith. But I have been long enough away, and it is time that I returned.”
“Wa
it,” I said. “I still have a job to finish. Where is Kinbarn?”
He smiled. “Venerating St. Josaphat, as I think you overheard me tell Martin.”
Great. Now he was being coy. “Please don’t play games with me, Bishop.”
He chuckled. “Ah, how soon humor leaves when the joke concerns ourselves. St. Josaphat is not a true saint. He is based on a rumor of a most holy man, who lived in India. His faith, however, was not Christian, which should have prevented his canonization. In the early days of the Church, such things were not always administered with proper rigor. You know him better, perhaps, as Gautama Buddha.”
“Thank you very much, your Reverence.” I knelt, and he blessed me. We went through three wormholes, and arrived in Chartres in 1227. He proceeded to the Cathedral, and I went through the wormhole that led from that time and place to the central highlands of Ceylon, in 810. St. Josaphat. I should have remembered that. It could have saved me a hell of a lot of trouble.
❖
I emerged in a garden. I couldn’t see it, because it was night there, but I could smell the ponderous aromas of night-blooming flowers and hear the chuckle of a running spring. Birds whooped at each other. The air was warm, and damp, and I stood there waiting while my eyes adjusted to the darkness and the moon rose over the mountains to light my way. I was on a wide grass-covered path that ran through the garden. The spring flowed into a small ceremonial pool intended for ritual ablution. My need for washing was considerably more than symbolic, and I took advantage of it. I hadn’t had a bath since Rome, however long ago that had been.
The trail ran up the hill toward the looming bulbous shapes of dagobas, which housed Buddhist relics. Below me, in the darkness, I could now hear the lazy rumble of a river. As the hill became steeper, the trail became stairs, which climbed among the low wooden buildings of the Buddhist monastery surrounding the dagobas. All was darkness and silence.
“May I be of assistance?” a voice said. Behind me. Again. This time I didn’t even bother to turn around. I just stopped and let him walk around in front of me. He was a tiny, bald, ancient monk in a saffron robe. He smiled at me, shyly and toothlessly, and bowed, or rather bobbed up and down repeatedly, like some sort of foraging bird.
“I’m looking for—” Oh, hell. Why not? “I’m looking for a four-foot-high black demon covered with diamonds. Seen any lately?” He tried to appear sad, but his eyes glowed joyfully. The result looked like mockery. “You are too late.”
Damn, damn, damn. Always too late. “Where has he gone?”
“Nirvana!” he said, and stood up straight. He was not much taller than Kinbam. “His soul has left the Wheel. Follow me, you will see.” I walked behind him, slowing my pace to his tiny shuffling steps. We walked past several of the dagobas and into a hut perched precariously on a cliffside. Inside, it was pitch-black. I heard a faint humming sound. My guide struck a flint and lit several lamps inside the hut. It grew bright enough to see.
Kinbarn sat in the middle of the room, in full lotus position. His three eyes stared off into nothingness. The faint hum came from somewhere inside of him, soft but unceasing. I walked up and touched him. He did not react. An empty bowl sat next to his left knee.
“We feed the body,” the monk said. “Rice.”
I thought about shouting, “Come with me, pal, you’re under arrest!” It didn’t seem quite appropriate. I stood and watched him for a long time, letting that hum penetrate, until I couldn’t stand it any longer. It felt like something I’d been hearing all my life, but never noticed. The basic sound of the universe, maybe. The echoes inside my own skull. I didn’t know. All I knew was that hearing it, out loud like that, was going to drive me crazy. I thanked the monk for his trouble, and left. He smiled after me. He did have one tooth, I saw in the lamplight, at the right, way in back.
So much for Kinbarn. The basic problem with using an addict as your runner and contact man, no matter how good he might be, is that sooner or later, being so near the stuff all the time, he’ll overdose.
I pushed my way into the jungle around the monastery toward a wormhole, trying not to think about panthers and snakes. It was time to return to the rendezvous point.
Marienbad was waiting. He lay on the bottom of a large swimming pool behind an elaborate Moorish mansion in Beverly Hills, 1923. It was midmorning. The house seemed to be deserted, though I could hear the hiss of sprinklers and the low conversation of Mexican gardeners somewhere behind the hedges. I sat down in one of the chairs by the side of the pool. “I want a daiquiri,” I said.
Marienbad chuckled. “It is the houseboy’s day off, I fear. He is assisting at a party at Cecil B. deMille’s house. They are celebrating the release of his film The Ten Commandments. It is good to see you again, Mathias. Where is our miscreant?”
I gave him the story, both barrels. The Bishop, Solomon, R. E. Mann, Korans in New Kingdom Egypt, golden calves, Nirvana.
“Astounding!” he said. “I must say, I had half suspected such an operation.”
“Why didn’t you warn me about it then? You could have saved me a lot of grief.”
“Mathias! And prejudice you? That would not have been professional. But you have done an excellent job, nonetheless. Leaving the well-larded Mr. Mann to be repasted by hungry Aztec religionists was a stroke of genius. I applaud you. But, as you may have concluded, our job is not yet finished. We have uncovered a smuggling operation, incredible for its great size and its lack of scruples. Religious faith! Parents spend their family’s monies on sacrifices and ritual vessels, children become intoxicated with dogma and doctrine. The social fabric of life is rent apart. A young lad begins with a few of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises in the bathroom between classes, and before he knows it he has a cross on his back and is converting the heathen to support his own vile habit. We must put a stop to this!” His voice quivered with outrage.
I had been afraid of that. “When do I get a vacation?”
“After all this fun, you wish a vacation? Oh, very well, Mathias. I know you are difficult. One week. Go to Elizabethan London. Take in a few plays, drink some sack, roister. That was a good time for roistering. But remember, when you return, you have your work cut out for you. The villain Mann has been masticated and digested. Rylieh, and justice, have yet to be served!”
The snowshoe hare’s half-eaten carcass lay under the deadfall of the figure-four trap, frozen blood crystallized on its fur, mouth still closed around the tiny piece of desiccated carrot that had served as bait. The snow was flattened around it, the rabbit’s fur thrown everywhere. Jack London sniffed at the trap, laid its ears back, and growled. Canine bona fides reaffirmed, it settled on its haunches and looked expectantly up at the man. Part Samoyed, part husky, Jack’s thick white fur concealed a body thin from hunger.
Elam didn’t have to sniff. The stink of wolverine was malevolent in the still air. It turned the saliva that had come into his mouth at the thought of roasted hare into something spoiled. He spat. “Damn!” The trap couldn’t be descented. He’d have to make another. No animal would come anywhere near a trap that smelled like that. The wolverine probably hadn’t even been hungry.
He pulled the dry carrot from the rabbit’s mouth and flung the remains off among the trees. The deadfall and the sticks of the figure four followed it, vanishing in puffs of snow.
“That’s the last one, Jack,” Elam said. “Nothing, again.” The dog whined.
They set off among the dark smooth trunks of the maples and beeches, Elam’s snowshoes squeaking in the freshly fallen snow. The dog turned its head, disturbed by the unprofessional noise, then loped off to investigate the upturned roots of a fallen tree. A breeze from the great lake to the north pushed its way through the trees, shouldering clumps of snow from the branches as it passed. A cardinal flashed from bough to bough, bright against the clearing evening sky.
Elam, a slender, graceful man, walked with his narrow shoulders hunched up, annoyed by the chilly bombardment from above. His clothing was entir
ely of furry animal pelts sewn crudely together. His thick hat was muskrat, his jacket fox and beaver, his mittens rabbit, his pants elk. At night he slept in a sack made of a grizzly’s hide. How had he come to be here? Had he killed those animals, skinned them, cured their hides? He didn’t know.
At night, sometimes, before he went to sleep, Elam would lie in his lean-to and, by the light of the dying fire, examine these clothes, running his hands through the fur, seeking memories in their thick softness. The various pelts were stitched neatly together. Had he done the sewing? Or had a wife or a sister? The thought gave him a curious feeling in the pit of his stomach. He rather suspected that he had always been alone. Weariness would claim him quickly, and he would huddle down in the warmth of the bear fur and fall asleep, questions unanswered.
Tree roots examined, Jack London returned to lead the way up the ridge. It was a daily ritual, practiced just at sunset, and the dog knew it well. The tumbled glacial rocks were now hidden under snow, making the footing uncertain. Elam carried his snowshoes under one arm as he climbed.
The height of the ridge topped the bare trees. To the north, glowing a deceptively warm red, was the snow-covered expanse of the great lake, where Elam often saw the dark forms of wolves, running and reveling in their temporary triumph over the water that barred their passage to the islands the rest of the year.
Elam had no idea what body of water it was. He had tentatively decided on Lake Superior, though it could have been Lake Winnipeg, or for that matter, Lake Baikal. Elam sat down on a rock and stared at the deep north, where stars already gleamed in the sky. Perhaps he had it all wrong, and a new Ice Age was here, and this was a frozen Victoria Nyanza.
“Who am I, Jack? Do you know?”
The dog regarded him quizzically, used to the question by now. The man who’s supposed to get us some food, the look said. Philosophical discussions later.
“Did I come here myself, Jack, or was I put here?”
The Breath of Suspension Page 13