by Martin Rua
54
The Guardian of the Threshold
Events reconstructed by Lorenzo Aragona
Fosse Ardeatine Memorial Cemetery, Rome, January, 2013 – 19:00
The lights which dimly illuminated the cave lost intensity until they were no brighter than a candle, the chill enveloped everything and silence closed in on us as though we were in a soundproof room. The feeling was that this was the last moment before death passed with his scythe. Only the Baphomet seemed still to possess a spark of life.
The eyes of the idol glowed brightly, as did its twisted mouth, and from those grotesque holes began to emerge a thick smoke in bright colours ranging from milky white to golden yellow, through every conceivable shade of grey and silver. The fumes joined together to form vaguely anthropomorphic figures hovering around those present: larvae, nymphs, bright-eyed ghosts, small smiling children or long strands of ectoplasm ending in the forms of voluptuous women with angelic faces. The crowd of otherworldly beings continued to emerge from the eyes and mouth of the Baphomet with a sound like a gentle breeze.
We all watched, enraptured, while the figures, hovering between the rock walls of the quarry, brushed against our faces and shoulders, never quite touching us. It was like being embraced by icy clouds. They seemed harmless enough, but each time a person met their gaze, he fell to the ground as though dead. It was hard to tell whether they were simply asleep or had their life suddenly torn from them.
Seeing what was happening, as one of the larvae passed me, I whispered, “Their eyes are dangerous… Don’t look into them! Let them caress you, but don’t look them in the eyes.”
In the meantime, the Baphomet had lit up again, and those diaphanous creatures disappeared just as mysteriously as they had appeared, leaving behind them a strange feeling of emptiness followed immediately by a sensation of panic. The light coming from the Baphomet then diminished to the intensity of a small candle, and its eyes grew red and seemed somehow to slowly emerge from the skull of the grotesque idol, rising in a cloud of thick black smoke until they reached the height of a tall man. The smoke thickened around those two burning slits and, falling in heavy spirals, as though it were pitch, formed a sort of gloomy shroud that left only the eyes uncovered.
And those eyes were the most frightening thing that a human being could ever see.
I edged slowly backwards, recklessly keeping my eyes on the supernatural entity, and crawled along the wall to where Camille sat. She had looked at the thing, and now seemed to have lost all control of her consciousness. Her face was expressionless, empty, her mouth hanging wide open.
The being, its eyes full of fiendishness, crept toward me, the black swirls of its dense veil falling to the ground like heavy reptiles before rising again like tentacles, only to then fall once more.
The fiery eyes penetrated my own and seemed almost to dig into my soul in search of weaknesses.
… Be strong, boy, and mind you don’t bend to the evil will of that ancient being. You must master him – or he will dominate you!
Sean Bruce’s words echoed in my mind, so I tried to concentrate and to resist the deadly allure of those eyes.
“You have entered the dark regions. I am the Guardian of the Threshold, and in you I recognise the Elect of the Nine. What is it that you want from me? You do not speak? Am I not what you were seeking? Mine is the wisdom of countless ages. Do you not wish for knowledge, Elect of the Nine? Why have you freed me from my prison?”
The voice had an irresistible power and each syllable dug a furrow of sheer terror through my mind. My heart was pounding in my chest like a frightened puppy, seeming almost to want to leap out of my body. I was shaking like a leaf in the storm and, even though I knew exactly what I wanted to ask the Guardian of the Threshold, the words simply would not come out of my mouth. I was gripped by fear, and the cold now penetrated every fibre of my being.
The Guardian did not wait for me to gather my wits and, bringing his fiery eyes close to my face, said, “Your hesitation makes of you an imposter, and I shall use my freedom to my liking.”
He raised himself and directing his eyes to the heavens, let out a rattle, like a wild beast preparing to attack its prey. “I feel the proximity of many souls and a place surrounded by many doors. If you want me, O impostor, you will find me between the gates of this city of sinners. I shall take many souls tonight, and I shall make of them my companions.”
And with these words he turned into a black bird which seemed to be made of smoke and tar – a giant raven, with eyes of fire – and flew from the cave.
In tears I watched as he flapped rapidly away, like an arrow shot into the night.
“What have I done? What have I done?” I muttered as I stared mesmerised at the point in the sky where the Guardian of the Threshold had gone.
Suddenly I felt someone shaking me.
“Lorenzo, snap out of it! Lorenzo!”
It was Oscar.
“Come on, brother, it’s not over yet.”
“I’ve failed, Oscar. He overpowered me… I couldn’t control him. I wasted my only chance to save Àrtemis and condemned God knows how many other people to an atrocious end,” I said in a faint voice.
“You’ve done worse than that, as it happens,” said Oscar in gentle reproach, “you’ve awakened a force that we have no idea know how to control.”
I looked around at the others in the cave. Some of the police officers were helping their colleagues who had been taken by the gaze of the Guardian of the Threshold. They weren’t dead, but their eyes were dull and they were unresponsive. I turned to my right, and saw the same look in the empty eyes of Camille, who was still kneeling next to the rock wall.
I approached her and shook her, but in vain: her eyes were open, but they stared hopelessly at something far away in space and time.
“Maybe it’s the proper punishment for the evil you’ve done, Camille.”
I stood up and pointed to her. “It seems that there is no way to stop the plan put in place by Woland, or at least that’s what Camille said.”
Oscar, grim-faced, nodded.
“Apparently not. Something’s happened in the Nervi Auditorium – Woland’s men have attacked the auditorium with some kind of electromagnetic pulse that shorted anything electronic. Only battery-powered torches are still working.”
“There’s a mole in the Vatican, a very powerful mole. What do they want? Have they made any demands?”
“From what we know, they seem to have demanded that the Pope comes out and kneels in the centre of St. Peter’s Square, in front of the basilica, and asks forgiveness for the sins of the Church.”
“This is madness! I hope he didn’t agree?”
“They’ve threatened to kill all the people inside if he doesn’t.”
A breathless policeman appeared, and Commissioner Volta, who had been kneeling beside his fallen colleagues, stood up to hear the news. “Commissioner, the Pope is coming out of the Nervi Auditorium.”
Oscar looked at me. “There’s your answer, Lorenzo.”
While the police brought us up to date on developments, I saw Anna, accompanied by Inspector Ferraris, coming towards us.
“So what do I call you?” I asked, “Anna, or agent Vova? Now I understand why you knew how to do all those things, the martial arts and the rest. What a fool I am—”
“Lorenzo, I’m sorry I lied to you,” she said staring at me with her deep blue eyes, “but I did leave the SVR, that is the truth. I left when I realized what they had done and—”
Anna paused and her eyes looked past me, towards the body of Woland, which the police were laying out on the ground. From the right pocket of his jacket peeked a little book.
“That’s my grandfather’s book!”
I recognized the worn cover of the book that Woland’s thugs had stolen from me in Kiev and my mind immediately flew to the second volume that Antonio had given me before he died.
“Why did Woland have it with him?” Anna asked, as s
he approached the police.
I showed her the book .
“Look – Navarro gave me to it. It’s the second volume. He said I would need it.”
“Can we take it?” Anna asked one of the policemen.
“Actually, it’s part of the crime scene.”
“Let her have it, Bonetti,” said Volta, reassuring his man.
“Do you think we might need it? What is it?”
“A short essay written by my grandfather, Commissioner, which contains information about the Guardian of the Threshold.”
Anna and I quickly leafed through it, hunting for some clue.
“You’re right,” I said as we searched frantically, “if Woland had it with him, he must have known that it contained something important that we missed. And now we have both parts.” But the pages of the essay seemingly contained nothing but folklore about the Guardian of the Threshold, the Baphomet and the Lodge of the Nine. I reached the end without finding anything. Anna looked at me forlornly, but I refused to give up, and began examining the book’s hard covers.
“In my business as an antiquarian I’ve sometimes happened to find letters or messages secretly hidden within the covers of books.”
I pulled back the paper which formed the inside of the cardboard and cloth cover and, in purest Lorenzo Aragona style – that is to say, with a fair bit of luck – I found yet another piece of folded paper.
“I don’t believe it—” murmured Anna.
Carefully, I opened the paper and saw that it was handwritten notes, texts and drawings. There was a fairly accurate sketch of the Baphomet, with arrows pointing to symbols which I recognized immediately. They were well-known alchemical symbols. For the text, though, I needed help.
“Maybe you can read it, Anna – it’s written in Russian, I think.”
Anna quickly read the first words, then smiled. “It’s by my grandfather, written in his own hand. First there is a title in Latin, Codex Baffometi—”
“Go on. What does it say next to those alchemical symbols?”
“It’s a kind of ritual, it refers to pages of the two volumes. Page thirteen, Volume I.”
I opened the first volume to the page indicated.
“He says first of all to find the door of the Ruach Elohim.”
“The Ruach Elohim?”
“It is the divine spirit in the Jewish religion – it corresponds more or less to the Holy Spirit. But where is this door of Ruach Elohim?”
“Doesn’t it say?”
“No, it just says to find the door and then perform the ritual to—”
“To—?”
I looked up and stared into her intense blue eyes.
“To imprison the Guardian of the Threshold.”
After that momentous discovery, we were about to continue reading when another policeman arrived, in a state of visible agitation, and Oscar and Volta broke off from helping paramedics put the wounded policemen on stretchers to listen to what he had to say.
“Commissioner, we’ve just received a communication from a patrol in San Giovanni.”
“What does it say?” asked Volta.
“There have been some strange accidents. Apparently several motorists and motorcyclists passing under Porta San Giovanni lost control of their vehicles and crashed. And our colleagues there say that people are acting strange; they swear they saw someone drive straight into the wall, looking up at the sky the whole time, and that they’ve seen a big black bird perched on the gate.”
“’If you want me, o impostor, you will find me between the gates of this city of sinners’,” I muttered to myself.
“The gates! It’s moving along the old city gates. Quick, let’s get to Porta San Giovanni – perhaps it’s still there.”
Volta had now realised that he could no longer ignore what was happening, and immediately called Ferraris.
“Go to San Giovanni with Commissioner Franchi and Mr Aragona, I’ll sort things out here and then get over to the Vatican.”
“Anna’s coming with us – I need her to crack the code.”
“All right,” said Volta with a nod.
Before setting off towards the entrance, I picked up the Baphomet. Judging by Glynz’s notes, it seemed that, just as it had evoked the Guardian, the Baphomet would allow us to imprison it again.
55
The Wings of Death
Events reconstructed by Lorenzo Aragona
Porta San Giovanni, Rome, January, 2013 – 19:30
We drove the three short miles that separated us from Porta San Giovanni in a matter of minutes. Firefighters had just arrived to put out a fire caused by burning vehicles which appeared to have crashed into the arches of the walls on either side of the gate. People were rushing to the scene while the police were trying to keep them back, and all were watching something on top of the gate. As we approached, we noticed that from time to time one of them would fall to the ground.
We looked up and we saw it. A large black bird, like a raven, perched above the great arch of the gate. Whenever its eyes, which from down there looked like two small flames, met those of an onlooker, the victim would be instantly paralysed, just as the police and Camille were in the Fosse Ardeatine.
We got out of the car and ran toward the crowd gathered under the gate, shouting, “Don’t look at it! Don’t look at the bird for any reason!”
Everyone turned toward us.
Oscar and Ferraris approached the policemen who were attempting to hold the crowd back.
“Who’s in charge here?” asked Oscar.
A stocky middle-aged man with a plump face and an imposing physique came forward. “Inspector Bocci – to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
“Commissioner Franchi, from the San Ferdinando station in Naples. I’m assisting Commissioner Volta in this matter.”
“It’s ok, Bocci, do what the commissioner says,” said Ferraris.
“Get these people out of here immediately, and tell them all not to look at that bird.”
Without wondering what the bird actually was, Inspector Bocci set to work with amazing speed, and the police soon managed to disperse the crowd that had gathered there and which was starting to get nervous.
The Guardian of the Threshold turned his gaze on me. It seemed that for some reason I did not fall under the spell of his eyes.
“You are not ready, Chosen One,” he whispered, talking directly to my mind, “I will await you at the next threshold.”
And so saying, he took off towards the north, leaving behind him another trail of victims.
“Where will he be going now?” asked Oscar, watching the bird vanish into the night.
“He said something to me,” I muttered as if in a trance. “’I’ll wait for you at the next threshold’.”
“The next threshold?” asked Oscar. “What does that mean? There are dozens of gates in Rome, we can’t drive around the whole town looking him.”
“Commissioner, we’ve got helicopters and patrol cars all over the city, we can use them to try and locate him,” suggested Ferraris.
“All right, let’s try that before we start driving around aimlessly.”
While my friend was co-ordinating his men, Anna and I moved away to the gardens in front of the nearby Porta Asinaria to try and interpret Vladimir Glyz’s Codex Baffometi.
“We need to figure it out, and fast.”
“All right, the second sign says to turn to page eighteen of the second volume,” said Anna, flipping through the book. “There’s a paragraph here called ’About the Baphomet’, let me read it to you.”
The academic world is now of the opinion that the term Baphomet is nothing but the corruption of the word Mohammed and it is therefore claimed that the Templars did not worship any idol, but, as was their custom, simply studied elements of the cultures with which they came into contact, in this case Islam. In their texts the name Muhammad/Mohammed was distorted into Baphomet or Baffometti, from which, according to the version most accredited by sc
holars, the legend created by the Inquisition was born.
We, however, know that is not a legend. The idol exists and the Templars first and the Lodge of the Nine later have looked after it, entrusting the keys to select members of the Lodge.
I gestured to her to carry on. “All right, we know that already – keep going.”
“Ok, on the piece of paper there’s a reference to page thirty-six of the first volume.”
Summoning the Guardian of the Threshold once you have found the Baphomet may be easy, but it is not enough to know the sequence to open the idol, and another ritual must in fact be performed to force the released Guardian to return to his eternal prison.
“And then again, page forty-five”.
In three cities there is a door of the Ruach Elohim, along an esoteric line traced by the first guardians: Jerusalem, Rome and Autricum.
“Where is Autricum?”
“It’s the Latin name of Chartres, in France – but we’re interested in Rome, keep going.”
This is the threshold through which the philosophers disappear, since it leads to illumination. To recall the fiery-eyed black raven—
“Good God, it’s describing the bird form of the Guardian of the Threshold!”
“Keep going, come on!”
To recall the fiery-eyed black raven you will need to align the symbols of the Art in front of one of the doors of the Ruach Elohim of the holy city in which you find yourself.
Anna stopped.
“Well?” I insisted, “Where’s the door?”
Anna shook her head. “I don’t know, it doesn’t say! It just goes straight to what you have to do once you get to it.”
I put my hands to my head.
“Ok, ok, Lorenzo, concentrate. Ruach Elohim… A door and alchemical references. Your grandfather must have known about them.”
As I sat there thinking, a sudden ray of light, as fast quick as a bullet, shot through my mind.
“Of course, what an idiot!”
I jumped up with a smile, grabbed Anna by the arm and dragged her away.
“I know where we have to go.”