Behind the Ivory Veil
10 Journey to the City
Monday, 20 June 1955, Metéora, Greece
AT DAYBREAK on Monday, Marcos, Pol, and the three Americans gathered at the common well to receive instructions from the old man. Besides the six of them, the family remained asleep and the courtyard lifeless. Wesley surprised himself when he realized he no longer considered them heathens. The old man was leader of a tribal sect, he thought. After all, a priest had been in the gathering the night before and had invited him to attend services at the monastery when they returned to the village.
“Dr. Heinrich has been exposed to the rules of our holy place before,” said the old man. “Our rules may seem simplistic and we cannot give you logical reasons for them. They have been followed for a thousand, perhaps two thousand years, and no one who broke the rules has ever returned to us. You may stay for as long as you wish, but you may not remain in the holy of holies past nightfall. You may take nothing away that is a part of the city. We have no means of exposing the way to you, but Apollo will guide you on your journey. He is my representative and speaks with my voice while you sojourn.”
“Andrew,” Doc said, shifting to lean on his walking stick, “is there a ritual this morning? Like when I was here before?”
The old man chuckled.
“I know of no ritual for sending archaeologists to the City of the Gods, Phillip. But you go with my blessing. May you each find your heart’s desire, and may your presence on the mountain bring fulfillment at long last to the prophecy we have been given,” he said.
The crew loaded into the Jeep with Marcos and Pol and began the confusing and circuitous drive to their starting point. Even as a veteran traveler of Greece, Doc could not keep his bearings as the passengers left Metéora and wound their way first south and then north, east and then west. Marcos explained that he could not navigate the paths that he and Pol had taken on Doc’s previous visit with the Jeep.
Pol, Wesley, and Margaret shared the back seat. Packs were strapped to the back of the Jeep. Doc and Marcos rode in the front. Even Margaret joined in the singing in the backseat as Wesley and Pol laughed together. Pol took his turn entertaining Wesley and Margaret with some simple but proficient sleight of hand. He told them he liked magic and was learning how to make things disappear. Wesley laughed and Pol pulled a pencil from his pocket and made it vanish. Wesley found it later restored to his pocket. The boy was very talented.
Doc was focused on the mystery of the vanishing City of the Gods that he had visited but could not locate on a map. Wesley had been promised source material for the Music of the Gods that Wilton had provided the inspiration for. But Margaret quested after information about the goddess hidden behind the ivory veil. Who was Serepte? Wesley listened with interest as Pol told story after story. His father and Doc were obviously pleased. Many of Pol’s stories were simple renditions of popular mythology. Occasionally, though, they had strange tidbits added that the Americans had never heard before. When she heard one of these, Margaret would pull out a tablet and try to jot down a note or two, a feat rendered nearly impossible in the bouncing Jeep.
In a few hours, the Jeep was grinding its way up the side of a mountain that had no more than a goat track for a road. When the going was getting very rough, Marcos pulled up and set the brakes.
“From here you must walk,” he said, jumping out of the vehicle. “Pol will show you the way. Brother El will drop off more supplies in two weeks. If you decide to leave before that, Pol will guide you back by the footpath to Metéora. I must return and try to make it back to Athens yet tonight. I will stop and tell my father that you are safely on your way.”
“Thank you, Marcos,” Doc said. “I have every confidence in Pol’s ability to lead us. The rest of the journey is in his hands.”
They unloaded the Jeep and distributed the packs. Marcos also unloaded an additional store of food and left it in a metal case locked to the foot of a tree. Doc took the key. If they ran short of provisions, they could hike back to the locked case.
Wesley carefully maneuvered Marcos aside and presented him with a Greek New Testament, which he had brought for the purpose of evangelizing the heathens. Marcos smiled at the offer and thanked Wesley profusely. Then, reaching into his own shirt pocket, he pulled out a worn and tattered version of the same book.
“You can see that my copy has seen a great deal of wear. I thank you for this gift which I will use every bit as well. You are a generous man.” Marcos was still smiling as he walked back to the vehicle with the gift in his hand. Wesley watched, perplexed. The Jeep disappeared back down the mountainside.
The trail to their base camp was steep. Wesley, though fit, fared the worst on the journey because he was not used to carrying a pack with his guitar swinging at his side. It was, nonetheless, a quiet walk, broken only by the huffing breaths that are normally the mark of beasts of burden. Wesley had a moment of wishing that Doc and Margaret had made him cut a walking stick like they had made for Rebecca. It would have come in handy on this trail, though he wasn’t sure how he could use it with a pack on his back and his guitar case in one hand.
After more than two hours of climbing the twisting trail, they came to a long open sward of green grass at the end of which was a gnarled old olive tree. Next to the oasis was a stream running from a spring above them. Pol took off his pack, calling a halt to their journey, and they made camp. Each erected a small tent and Wesley mused that it looked like an old-time army camp. They had a bivouac in which they stored their supplies and packs as there was room in each tent only for a person to slip in and sleep.
Margaret gathered the makings for their simple dinner and instructed Wesley on how to set up and use the small white gas burner that would heat the single pan. Most of the food they carried was dried and water was added to the pan from the stream.
Pol took a swim in the stream as they watched. Wesley considered the possibility of joining him, but, of course, he had not packed a swimming suit and, unlike the boy, was not willing to simply strip to his shorts and dive in. When he had swum, Pol brought water from the stream and washed the feet of each of his companions, as he had done with Doc on his first trip.
This opened an opportunity for Wesley and he began talking to Pol about the way Jesus washed the feet of the disciples. Pol listened respectfully as he finished the story. He smiled at Wesley.
“It is one of my favorite stories from the catechism,” Pol said. “It is why I wash your feet when you are tired. It is a good example to follow.”
Doc and Margaret had patiently watched Wesley’s attempts at evangelism throughout the previous evening and this day without interfering or objecting. Now, they nearly exploded with laughter at Wesley’s dumfounded look. Wesley blushed and finally joined the laughter. It had been too perfect a setup for him to get angry. The people he had forced himself to consider heathen, cultic, and pagan were far better versed in his religion than he in theirs. Not only that, but they accepted his ways, his missionary attempts, and his beliefs.
As evening drew on, Pol sat singing in the quiet camp. Wesley thought to join him at one point, but the words leapt from a simple song to the mystic language that he shared. He let the music wash over him and lull him to sleep. His dreams were filled with questions and Wesley quietly accepted that he simply did not know everything, even about his own faith. From that point, he slept soundly.
Tuesday, 21 June 1955, City of the Gods
When Pol woke the sleeping partners, fog encompassed the camp. It was Doc who emphasized to Wesley and Margaret the importance of not breaking the chain that joined them to their guide. He had narrowly escaped a dramatic conclusion to his career on the previous visit. This time he had prepared for the ascent with ropes, and they linked together with carabiners on a single line. Doc insisted on going last with Wesley and Margaret between him and Pol. Thus prepared, they began the climb through thick fog up the mountain.
Wesley had always believed that if he were deprived of sight, the hearing faculties would compensate. The acuity of his hearing in this fog, however, came as a surprise. Doc’s experience was that his hearing was muffled as much as his eyesight had been obstructed in the fog. Wesley heard everything.
As a child, Wesley had been extraordinarily sensitive to sound patterns, whether or not they were inherently musical. To him, there were always innate rhythms, sequences, and tonality. He could hear them in people’s voices, in birdsong, in the purring of a cat, and in what others would consider the general cacophony of life. Sound caressed him with fingers tuning more than his ears to their touch. His entire body bristled with the expectation of whispers hidden in the wind.
In the fog, blindly linked to a child whose outline he could dimly discern ahead of him, Wesley’s ears were filled with sound. Music. They were singing. Only not singing. It was…
Wesley shook his head to clear his ears. Perhaps it was only his imagination. Or perhaps it was something that happened only inside his own ears like tinnitus. Maybe he was schizophrenic and one side of his personality sang to the other. The fog made it easy to imagine voices.
If only he could see the singers and affirm that they were out there in the fog. The soprano voice was joined by a tenor. Then both faded as a rich contralto assumed the lead. This in turn was replaced by a trio of mournful voices raising the hairs on the back of his neck.
Wesley paused. They were just over there. He could unhook from the safety line and go to them. They were only a few feet away. He felt the tug at his waist as Pol pulled him forward, stumbling slightly. Perhaps the voices were sirens and this was what Odysseus felt when he passed Anthemoessa lashed to the mast of his ship. Voices that tugged so deeply at the heartstrings that one would gladly wreck himself on the rocks to join them.
The fog began to lift and the voices dissipated with it, leaving Wesley searching his surroundings for angels fleeing from sight. But there were only massive pillars in uniform rows that stretched out from a central court. In the center was a low rostrum and Pol went directly to it.
Dawn in the City of the Gods cannot be easily described, but once experienced is never forgotten. In the pre-sunrise light, the pillars seemed to materialize around the visitors. They are so tall that even those viewed from a distance looked like they supported the sky. The air was now crystal clear, all trace of the fog was gone and with it, all trace of the loose gravel mountain path they had traveled.
Wesley sensed a lingering presence—echoes in his ears of the mysterious music, but now without apparent source or direction. This experience of music deep inside him left Wesley with moist eyes. But when Pol mounted the rostrum and faced the rising sun, singing his greeting and being greeted in return, Wesley openly wept.
When the ritual was finished and the sun was clearly above the horizon, burning brightly down the avenue of pillars, Pol rejoined the three. Doc asked him to once again explain the rules of exploration and Pol said they could wander as far as they wished and need not fear becoming lost. All avenues would lead back to the central rostrum.
The crew tried this principle several times, using chalk to mark their paths and making notes and maps as they explored and intersected in different directions. They were frequently out of sight of the rostrum, but no matter which path they chose to follow, it led back to the center.
“Any suggestions?” Doc asked as they compared their first maps. Each had drawn the phenomenon in a different manner. The maps were not recognizable as the same location.
“Optical illusion is the best I can offer,” Wesley said. “What is straight is obviously not straight.” He pointed to his map which showed a single straight row of pillars with the center point showing up in different locations on the path.
“Wesley, if there is anything I hate, it is the world ‘obvious’,” Margaret said. “Isn’t it equally possible that there could be a ripple in the plane grid negating what we normally view as straight? Einstein suggested such possibilities in his theory of relativity. The path is straight in relation to itself but the plane is wrinkled.”
“I’m familiar with Einstein’s views on peace and world government, but I couldn’t grasp the mathematics of relativity,” Wesley admitted.
“That is because we live in a space, time, and mindset that does not allow us to physically model the theories that we profess to live by,” Doc said. “Regardless, as difficult as it may be to suspend our disbelief, I think Margaret’s theory deserves as much consideration as optical illusion. In fact, it might explain optical illusions. We could be in a physical structure of sorts that transcends the laws of physics that we know.”
“I will do my best,” Wesley answered, “but it sounds much too impossible for me to believe.”
Margaret laughed. “Wesley, if this is too impossible to believe, is there something less impossible in which you might believe?”
“Now we are playing semantics,” argued Wesley.
“Precisely,” Doc said. “Words are what we base reality on. We have no other way of classifying experience. That is what is so significant about your musical notation. It transcends words. Now, you agree that if one thing is more impossible than another, then the other thing must, by definition be more possible. Correct?”
“Of course. But…”
“Then if I can think of something more impossible than my first suggestion, you must accept the first as more possible,” Margaret said. “Therefore, I posit that, like Alice, we have stepped through a looking glass and experience this phenomenon because we are actually exploring the cap of a giant mushroom and are jointly hallucinating.”
The sweet smile that Margaret gave Wesley made her look years younger than he knew her to be. It captured such impish innocence that Wesley began to laugh. In a moment, Doc and Margaret had joined him, all seeing the absurdity of their situation.
“You’ve got to do better than that, Margaret,” he choked. “That’s not impossible, it is simply ridiculous.”
“Then consider this,” Doc said, catching his breath. “We are exploring a completely self-contained global area. This theory allows for the operation of normal laws of spherical geometry to be in force. If you walk long enough in a straight line, you always end up back where you started.”
“Now that,” said Wesley soberly, “is totally impossible. You can’t simply take a walk through the fog and end up on another world, which is what I believe you mean. Albeit a very small world.”
“Very well,” Margaret said. “Having put an absolute on the term ‘impossible’, we must consider all other theories possible, no matter how improbable.”
“Until proven otherwise,” Wesley sighed, conceding the semantics while still considering the whole situation to be absurd.
“Agreed.”
The three rejoined Pol at the rostrum where the almost thirteen-year-old was practicing card tricks, and doing so with tremendous skill. Wesley had a glimpse of himself at that age and wondered how an adolescent could possibly endure a week, much less a month, with three adults in an environment where he must entertain himself. He resolved to spend some extra time with the boy whenever he could.
They examined the surface of the rostrum for the first time and discovered that it was covered with the musical notations that Wilton had documented in his papers. As they ate their jerky and dried fruit for lunch, they trod carefully across the surface. It was an ancient structure and certain areas showed wear, as though they were on a well-traveled path. This was true at each of the twelve points around the circle from which the avenues seemed to radiate like the spokes of a wheel. Doc was concerned that they would damage the surface by walking on it, but their careful examination showed that even in the worn spots, the symbols were deeply engraved. There seemed to be no way to investigate without walking on them.
As they analyzed the symbols, they disputed the directions. Wesley insisted the east was in one direction and Doc pointed to an avenue next to it.
“But look,” Wesley said. “The sun is moving to the west down that avenue. This is the avenue opposite and therefore must be east.”
“You can’t prove it by me,” Doc said. “My compass is not working at all. Whatever the nature of this place, we must be located in some intensely powerful magnetic field.”
“Have you never seen the summer sun in the far north?” Margaret asked. Wesley admitted he had not been farther north than the Sault Saint Marie as a child. “The sun rises just a few degrees east of due north,” she explained. “Its path in our perception is eastward. It is not due east until midmorning and then appears to move south and west, then north and west. Around midafternoon, it appears due west and then travels north and east again until it sets just a few degrees west of due north. If we consider that the rostrum might be the north pole of this region, then the sun would always rise and set in the south because every direction from the north pole is south. Even if we are not at the pole, it is summer solstice. The tilt of the axis would be at its farthest north.”
Wesley stared at her with glazed eyes.
“Um… What time is it?” he asked.
“I’ve no idea,” Margaret said. “My watch seems to have stopped.”
“I never carry a watch in the field. Wesley? How about yours?”
“I think it stopped as well. The hands are all pointing to twelve.”
“Well, we know it is later than that,” Margaret said. “None of us doubted when it was time to eat our lunch. And the sun, no matter what direction, is definitely moving away. Our shadows are getting longer.”
“Pol, how much longer do we have until it is time to leave?”
“Soon,” Pol answered. “We should gather our things and follow the sun.”
“I think we need a strategy session,” Doc said. “We won’t accomplish much more today. Lead on, Pol.”
As soon as the four had hooked themselves together and started down the avenue, fog rose from the ground around them. It soon closed in and the silent voices guided them down the treacherous path to their campsite. They emerged in the late afternoon. Wesley asked Pol if the fog was always there.
“It is always and never there,” Pol said. He pointed back the way they had come into camp and there was no sign of fog. They could see far up the mountain. It was simply one of the mysteries of the City of the Gods.
“I recall that in mythology, the gates of Olympus were always shrouded in fog and one could not pass without the company of the seasons—the four goddesses that guarded the gates. It seems appropriate for a City of the Gods,” Doc said.
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