by Rob Swigart
“I regret I must write this on humble pottery, but parchment is in short supply here in this backward place, while there is an abundance of broken pots. Yours in Christ, Melophrastos of Harran.”
She placed the object back in the box and closed the lid. The mechanism inside reset the lock with a whirr. “Harran’s near Urfa.”
Steve was sliding the container back into its niche. “And Urfa was once called Edessa, home of the original painting called Miraculous Child.” He closed the door and turned. “This little puzzle grows ever more interesting. Still, we have questions, don’t we, like where will the child be born in the far west? When is this child to appear? Questions, Lisa; no answers.”
“We do know one or two things,” she said. “You couldn’t go farther west than the Atlantic coast back then, so probably Spain or Portugal. That’s a start. As for when, Ophis Sophia clearly believes the time is at hand. Secrets are emerging. So if we assume the copy of Miraculous Child is in the Cluny Museum, we can find it and the message Bruno put in it. And that may lead us to Usem and some answers.”
Teacher
Those who did not call Nizam al-Muriq Teacher called him The Gnome. This was not for his stature, which was average, but because of his basilisk stare, the deep grooves between his black, unruly brows, clean-shaven puffed cheeks of an unhealthy reddish-orange, thin, dark lips curved into a disdainful smile, and a chill, unsettling charm. His sly, watchful eyes glittered with such malice most people looked away. A slight S-curve in the vertebrae of his neck twisted his head to the left. He appeared not entirely human: an almost supernatural, malevolent entity.
Lex Treadwell, who was among those who called him Teacher, hated to bring bad news. “Gone,” he said, looking down at the pale tan carpet with a light blue floral motif around the edge. Though taller than the Teacher he seemed to diminish before him.
Nizam al-Muriq took in a deep breath and released it slowly. “Gone?” he repeated.
Lex nodded somberly. “Yes, Teacher, as if they never were. When Kemal didn’t call in, I went to the rue du Dragon. A fire truck waited in front. A man, late thirties, blond, undoubtedly ex-military, was speaking with the firemen. When he went inside, the firemen left. A moving truck appeared almost immediately. Five men.” His narrative had fallen into a slow, toneless cadence. “They set up a conveyer, the kind used to take furniture to upper floors. Three of them entered the apartment through the window. For the next hours they brought out debris and took up building materials and tools. The debris meant Kemal had breached the roof, but he still doesn’t answer his radio or phone— none of them answer.” He looked up. After a pause he added, “They’re gone, my Teacher.”
Al-Muriq, collected entirely inward, watched the younger man. His eyes jerked in nearly imperceptible jumps. An unnatural time passed between blinks, and when his unnerving smile suddenly appeared, he revealed large, unnaturally white teeth. While not actually filed to points, they threatened, and Lex kept his eyes lowered.
Al-Muriq’s legendary cruelty was not of the broadly democratic kind, but cold and narrowly focused. He created clear goals and advanced toward them with steady, though often devious, patience, from the side, from below, from the back, never straight on. He thought of himself as certain of his judgment and completely dedicated to carrying out its demands. He was quite simply superior to others, who were invisible until useful. The world was the way it was. He lived in it and with it until such time as he, a charismatic man engaged in changing the world, could find the right lever. He was, after all, a visionary who numbered among his committed followers the younger man before him. The lever.
Prudence moved Lex to avoid meeting al-Muriq’s eyes. He glanced instead around a room of Baroque, even excessive, opulence, wide, high ceilinged, gilded, with fat cherubs looking down from the corners. In fact, he had seen this room often, and was really watching his Teacher’s unnatural hands, latent with a capacity for unpredictable and dreadful violence, seldom used. He had seen them at work, though, and would never forget.
The walls of this grand salon dripped with damask and gold. No speck of sunlight could penetrate the heavy curtains over the tall windows. Chandeliers and wall sconces gave off a bluish light that drained all animation from human skin. Voices were subdued and hollow.
The tall wrought iron gate and the perimeter wall of the ample yard, capped with broken glass and electronic sensors, kept out unwanted visitors. The entrance bell rang only by invitation, and even then armed guards opened the gate.
Lex did not yet know that at that moment the man he knew as Ibrahim was questioning Usem Izri in a bedroom on the top floor under the eaves.
After some silence, Nizam pursed his lips, lifted a down-slanting eyebrow, and whispered, “Dead, then?” The material of his robe had a slight reflective sheen, like scales. His movements, like his eyes, were economical to an extreme.
“I fear yes, Teacher. Two men stayed in front, leaning against the truck smoking or pacing up and down the sidewalk. They pretended to be bored and restless, but were obviously on duty. Even after the lights in the surrounding buildings went out, they stayed. I had no chance to get inside. I watched carefully, Teacher. I waited until day. The only ones going in and out were the workmen, and once the blond man went back inside, they used the upper window. The Delphi people never come out. Our people never came out. It’s as if they were never there. The snakes, too. My regret is great, Teacher. We failed you.”
Though he spoke softly, Nazim did not hide his unhappiness. “Unless we recover their bodies, they cannot receive a proper burial. This is unfortunate.”
Alex nodded. His expression was somber.
Nizam spoke the men’s names as a kind of liturgy, each one drawn out, separated by silence: “Kemal. Toufic. Shamaoun. Ophis Sophia in Her wisdom has taken them from us. May their souls rest in Sheol until the resurrection of the martyrs.” He brought his thumb and two fingers to a point and crossed himself, right to left in the Eastern manner, followed by a sinuous gesture from navel to neck. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of Maššatur, Great Mother and Serpent Herself, amen.”
Lex mimicked the gesture and murmured, “Amen.” His head was bowed in full humility, but like his mentor he was fuming inside.
Nizam al-Muriq let his hands fall. They stopped, two knotted, thickly veined clots, just below his wide red sash. His black robe trimmed with red piping covered him from neck to toe, leaving his face and those motionless hands as the only visible flesh.
He stirred. “Habibi.” The Aramaic for ‘beloved’ darted from between the dark lines of his lips like a serpent’s tongue, a statement, not a question but the intimate caress of terror.
In this aspect he was most fully The Gnome. His perpetually cocked head and black, impenetrable eyes conveyed reptilian curiosity and an almost abstract loathing directed not at Alex in particular, but the universe in general. The slow sideways nod that followed the word habibi caused the light from the chandelier to shimmer over the smooth surface of his skull, a curved half-sphere broken by random tufts of gray hair like sickly bushes in a bleak tan desert.
Lex had heard the stories. His Teacher’s hair had turned ash gray before he was twenty and for the next four decades had gradually fallen away while his power and influence grew. Today he commanded an army of legions who would be ready to give up their lives for him.
“Yes, Teacher?” the younger man replied.
“They died for me,” Nizam murmured, and louder added, “They died for Ophis Sophia. Theirs was a great destiny… You have always been my closest, most trusted one, Iskander.”
The American stammered, “I have been blessed by your teachings, Teacher.”
“Well, this is a minor setback, that is all.” Al-Muriq switched to a strangely inflected English, all hissing consonants and closed vowels. “Yes, you failed. This Delphi group Usem’s friend contacted did not know of our existence, and now they do. Delphi, you may recall, was a pagan shrine, a place of trickery
and abomination. The seer at Delphi, the woman who pronounced the future, was called the Pythia, named for the great python Apollo killed on the spot. Do you see? The slaughter of a wisdom serpent. Now we find a modern oracle, and someone who runs it, a new Pythia, apparently.”
“Yes, Teacher, the snake of Evil that must be killed. We tried…”
“And failed. You sent Kemal, Toufic, and Shamaoun to strike the head from the serpent. Without the head, the body would die. The serpent’s tooth…” His voice hopped from one word to the next. At the end it seemed momentarily lost, as if there should be at least one more place to jump.
The younger man swallowed, a movement mostly hidden behind his thick blond beard.
“Three of my best soldiers are gone, and the Pythia yet lives and knows we exist. Do you understand what this means, habibi?”
“I will make it right, Teacher. It was my decision to send them. I did not anticipate such sophisticated defenses. Toufic signaled they broke into the cellar easily. Too easily, he thought. They were supposed to call only when the job was done. They did what they were told to do, but something went terribly wrong.”
“We monitor police bands,” al-Muriq said softly. “A disturbance on the rue du Dragon, then nothing, neither content nor context.”
“Yes, Teacher, I will fix…”
Nizam dismissed this with a small wave of his hand. “Of course you will fix it. What concerns me, habibi, besides the deaths of our own, is that this group is far more dangerous than we believed. They have cunning and resources. We don’t know their extent, though, and our man in Greece has been unable to penetrate their communications. Failure is all around us. We know only that they seek the Jesuit. Before long they will begin looking for the Child. We cannot let this happen. They must be neutralized, all of them. Frontal assault was a failure. We must try something else.” He released a long, hissing sigh. His left hand twitched in a minimal gesture of dismissal. “Well, what’s done is done. While we wait for Ibrahim to finish questioning the Jesuit, I would discuss something of importance.”
“Yes, Teacher.”
“You have mastered the Third Mystery.”
“Yes, Teacher.”
“Though only a Third, are you ready for Redemption?”
“Yes, Teacher.”
“For Sacrifice?”
“Yes, Teacher.”
The death’s head smile came and went. “Very well, habibi, I believe you. One day soon I will ask something great of you. But for now, I have a small but vital task for you. Today you will go to Greece…”
His cell phone’s chime interrupted him. He palmed the device from his sash and purred softly. “Tell me you know what he did with the Tablet of Destinies.”
His expression was frozen. When he turned off the phone, his voice was still soft. “The Jesuit hid it, probably in the Collège building. Ibrahim is with him now, but the old man is proving… unresponsive. We’re losing our advantage. We must be there when the Child is born. Only then can we lead her to her destiny. Only in that way will the Divine Mother be fulfilled.”
“And if the child is a boy?” Lex dared ask.
Al-Muriq dismissed this question with a flick of his wrist. “She is already a girl,” he said simply. “Always has been.”
“We will retrieve the Tablet, Teacher,” the younger man said. “It’s only a matter of time.”
“Time, yes.” Nizam al-Muriq’s body rippled like a dog shaking off water. “Time is something we don’t have. This Delphi Group killed three of our soldiers. That will not happen again. Their technology is sophisticated, I’m told; to eavesdrop on them we need the best.” He produced a scrap of paper from his sash and gave it to Alex. “Here is the name. Take care of it. If the Tablet confirms it, the Child will soon be born. We must be there, Iskander. We must be there to receive her.”
Lex nodded, flooded with relief: the Teacher had called him Iskander again. He was forgiven.
It was a shame about Kemal and the others, but there were always casualties in war.
Musée de Cluny
Afternoon visitors to the Musée national du Moyen ge at 6, Place Paul-Painlevé, were lined up from the ticket office to the street. The Cluny, as it was commonly called, is best known for one of the greatest art works of the Middle Ages, a set of six huge tapestries called The Lady and the Unicorn.
“How do we get in?” Lisa asked. She and Steve were standing in the shade of a large chestnut tree in the museum gardens, its new leaves stirring in a very light breeze.
“Buy a ticket?” Steve suggested.
“That’d mean waiting. We don’t have….”
“I’m kidding. Come.”
Steve bypassed the line and rapped on an unmarked door. A man peered out and Steve flashed a card. The door opened wider. Lisa shook her head. “Of course,” she murmured. “One of your magic cards.”
They went through a series of corridors to an office. A starched older woman at a desk looked up, broke into an enormous smile, showing two rows of perfectly manicured teeth, and rose to her feet. She was tall and elegant, with blond hair tightly coiffed into a French twist. The color might once have been hers. “Étienne, tu es là, chéri, il y a longtemps. Embrasse-moi.” She leaned into Steve for the ritual two-cheek kiss, and stepped back, holding his upper arms and staring into his eyes, a smile playing at the corners of her crimson lips. After a moment she dropped his arms and said wryly, “Well, I can see this isn’t just a social call.” She gathered him into a brief hug before letting go for good. “Well, chéri, you haven’t changed at all. Still the handsome blond devil. What can Sylvaine do for you?”
Her voice was throaty and deep. If she hadn’t seen for herself, Lisa would have thought she was a twenty-year-old coquette. Yet there was something enthusiastic and likeable about the woman, and she couldn’t help but be charmed.
Steve introduced them. “Sylvaine, I present to you Lisa Emmer. She’s American, but we try not to let that deter us from appreciating her.”
The older woman cocked her head. After an appraising moment, she nodded. “Then I, too, shall appreciate her. But tell me, she’s your… petite amie?”
“Alas, no. A colleague; a valued one.”
The woman pulled her head back in surprise. “She doesn’t look like a banker.”
He laughed. “No, Sylvaine, Lisa’s not a banker, she’s a scholar of old art and documents. We bankers come across such things among our clients’ effects; Lisa advises us on provenance and such.”
Sylvaine lifted a stylish pair of reading glasses on a chain around her neck and settled them on her nose. “I see,” she said with unconscious irony. “So, as I suspected, you are here for business as a banker and not at all to see your old lover?”
“Something like that,” he conceded. “Except for the old lover part, though I don’t…”
Sylvaine’s delighted laugh stopped him with a wink at Lisa. “Don’t worry, chéri, your secret’s safe with me.”
Steve rolled his eyes.
“So,” she continued briskly, “now you’ve come to Sylvaine for help and she will of course do what she can. I don’t take it badly, mon cher, that you couldn’t indulge me in a moment’s coquetry, for I see from both your expressions there is urgency. So, tell me, how can this antique curator of antiquities help?”
“Hardly antique," Steve murmured.
Lisa spoke for the first time, “A painting.”
“We have some, yes. Any particular one?”
“Very particular.” Lisa grinned back. “Thank you in advance.”
Sylvaine tsked. “Don’t thank me yet; I may not be able to help, Mlle. Emmer.”
“We hope you can. This particular painting may have come here in 1583 from the collections of Henri III.”
“Henri III? I must warn you, I have doubts. Much of his art was destroyed by the Duc de Guise and his followers, or ‘misplaced,’ as they say. There have been many changes in the Republic since his time. Catholic against Protestant, aristocra
cy against everyone else. We have a history, Mlle. Emmer. Even these buildings have been rebuilt and destroyed many times.”
Steve was nodding. “We agree it’s a long shot, but need confirmation. The painting is itself a singular copy of a lost original, which may affect its value. This inquiry is confidential, of course. There are lives, and fortunes, at stake, you understand?”
Sylvaine arched one meticulously painted eyebrow above the rimless edge of her glasses. “Lives? Fortunes? Mon dieu. Very well, then, come, let’s take a look, shall we?” She led them out of the office at a brisk pace. They caught up with her at a small door marked Avis: Personnel Autorisé Seulement. A stairway led down two flights to a second locked door, also marked Authorized Personnel. Sylvaine opened it and turned on a series of dim hanging bulbs, revealing a deep, climate-controlled storage room.
Paintings, framed and unframed, tilted ten-deep against the walls. Above them wooden shelves sagged under hundreds of small paintings, icons, and assorted jars, lamps, figurines, and religious paraphernalia. The back of the room was crammed with so many sculptures in various media— wood, stone, bronze— that the back wall was hidden and they couldn’t tell where the room ended. Dusty cobwebs, hanging from the ceiling in long loops, stirred sluggishly.
Sylvaine stepped to the side. “Voilà!”
“How many are there?” Steve asked. “Paintings, I mean?”
“Over four hundred seventy-seven, the number in the catalogs. Unfortunately, even the objects that are in the catalog were filed under numbers, which were neither descriptive nor helpful. Others aren’t catalogued at all. You’re welcome to look at the card files in that cabinet there, but I must warn you the art in this room is considered quite inferior. Curators since 1900 have wanted to get rid of it, but there has never been the will or the budget. Almost no one comes down here. This is just a guess, but if it’s here, and it could be pretty much anywhere, late sixteenth century should be somewhere near the back.”