Behind the Ivory Veil
13 Beware the Night
Friday, 8 July 1955, City of the Gods
DURING THE FOLLOWING DAYS, the story haunted Wesley. He questioned Pol more in depth about the story, the promised deliverer, the origins. He wrote songs and poems about the goddess, some of which he included in his weekly letters to Rebecca. She became his own goddess.
The crew continued to meet each day at the central rostrum to strategize their work. A profusion of writing decorated the rostrum and this, Wesley was assigned to copy and begin translating. There was also writing on the base of nearly every pillar in the forest that surrounded the platform. The three examined several of the pillars and with their combined knowledge of Greek and Wesley’s linguistic abilities when they encountered the hieroglyphs, they pieced together one or two myths. The stories were told in first person by the character involved. They identified the pillars by the character and event represented in the story. Their first significant discovery was that the twelve pillars closest to the rostrum were named for the twelve principal deities of Greece and corresponded to the twelve signs of the zodiac inscribed on the edge of the rostrum.
Doc and Margaret moved outward, systematically plotting the names and positions of the pillars. Wesley and Pol set to work at the rostrum, Wesley copying the symbols carefully while Pol juggled or practiced magic tricks. The two got along well and frequently laughed at odd little bits of trivia.
The designs on the rostrum were a complex set of geometric designs, overlaid with hieroglyphs, overlaid again with ancient Greek characters. That was Wesley’s analysis. There was, however, a constant nagging at the back of his mind that he was missing something. He tried a half-dozen systems for drawing the patterns to scale. On one part of his drawing the figure was barren. On another it was too crowded to read. Beginning on one side and working inward left him with a funnel of data that got wider as he approached the center instead of smaller. It was plain by this approach that the contents of the circle took up more room than the circle itself.
Wesley sat at the edge of the rostrum with Pol, biting into dried beef strips for lunch and puzzling over the process. So far, he was getting nowhere. He dug into his satchel for inspiration in the name of a sharp pencil, finally dumping the entire contents out on one of the flat stones. Having found a pencil, he began replacing the contents. Candles, matches, gloves, electric torch, spare socks, button thread. He paused, looking at the spool of button thread in his hand.
“Pol,” he said, finally, “will you give me a hand for a moment?”
The boy willingly held one end of the thread on the symbol of Aries as Wesley stretched the line across to Libra. Here he cut the thread and they let it lie across the rostrum. Then taking a fresh end, Pol held it on the sign of Cancer as Wesley stretched the line to Capricorn. Once again, he cut the thread and laid it on the rostrum.
“Thank you,” said Wesley.
“What did we do?”
“Well, if our ancient architects were at all symmetrically inclined, we have just located the precise center of the rostrum. And even if they were not, we have laid out uniform repeatable quadrants. I can work from the center point out to map the circle, just as Doc and Margaret are doing with the pillars.”
Pol was impressed, though Wesley had his doubts whether he understood. At the moment, however, he was more interested in finding what lay precisely at the center of this circle. Pol leaned over Wesley’s shoulder to examine the crosshairs.
“What is it?”
“A star,” said Wesley. There at the center of the pattern was an incongruous, perfectly proportioned, five-pointed star, so finely etched in the slab that it seemed almost like a mosaic.
“It’s even a different color,” Pol said.
“Yes. Now that you mention it and we have isolated this one, you can see veins of color running all through the orchestra. Very faint. Blue. Green. See?”
The two stood on the rostrum looking down at the crosshairs formed by the thread. Wesley laid an arm around Pol’s shoulders and gave him a squeeze.
“It is important, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” answered Wesley. “Doc knows much more about significance as opposed to something being merely pleasing. But it is, somehow, inspiring.”
Wesley knelt to begin sketching the design once again. This time he sketched the crosshairs vaguely, indicating the signs at each end. Then he carefully penciled in the star at the center. The two talked as Wesley continued drawing, marking off sections within the section with additional pieces of string.
“You drew the string from Spring to Autumn and Summer to Winter,” Pol commented, surprising Wesley. “And the star is aligned to those directions.” Wesley looked at his sketch and again at the star in the center of the rostrum. He had drawn from a different position, but when he moved to what was obviously the base of the star he saw that the arms definitely stretched parallel to the spring/fall line and the crosshair stretched through the upper point and between the legs of the star from summer to winter.
Thursday, 14 July 1955, City of the Gods
It would be a long job to even come close to an accurate mapping of the rostrum. Of course, when Doc and Margaret had joined ‘the boys’, as they called them, there was a flurry of photography as they photographed the star and each quadrant of the rostrum. They would need more film with Brother El’s next delivery.
Pol gladly worked with Wesley, even drawing some of the symbols when he was not juggling. And their discussions took on a depth that was both refreshing and surprising. The boy was not, and did not pretend to be, a theologian, but Wesley attended what he said as if he were the twelve-year-old Jesus teaching in the temple.
“I believe the stories,” Pol said, “but I do not understand them. Why are we made guardians of ta hagia hagion? When all the gods have flown to the heavens, why do we preserve the mystery of the one left behind?”
“I don’t know, Pol. Why don’t you make the choice that your father made and become a Christian?”
“But my father taught me the stories. He still believes, even though he embraces the new faith. And there is no one else to give charge of the stories to.”
“Maybe that is why you must keep the mystery safe.” Wesley had begun to show as much compassion for Pol’s beliefs as Pol respected Wesley’s. One thing that he was learning on this journey was that he had a far greater capacity for belief than he was aware of.
As the day drew to a close, Doc and Margaret returned to the rostrum and looked again at Wesley’s quadrants, carefully laid out again that morning. Wesley and Pol began rolling up the thread and stowing it in his pack.
“That is an idea we could expand upon,” Doc mused. “In a climate as still and dry as this, we could save a lot of re-tracking in the morning if we sectioned off the pillars we have identified by laying a piece of string around them. Ultimately, we would have quadrants laid out throughout the city. Nothing living here to disturb them but ourselves.”
“No.” Pol’s voice was small but commanding. “You see nothing alive here, but it is a living place. Even a thread might bind a god that mortals would break without thought.”
“They don’t change places, do they, Pol?” Margaret asked.
Wesley laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”
There was a long pause and Wesley knew he had misspoken. He was drawn back in his mind to the patterning of the rostrum. He was sure there was a connection.
It was Pol who once again broke the silence.
“It is time to go.” He marched down the Cancer Avenue. It had been named by the group according to the sign on the rostrum in that direction. They were reasonably certain that this was east. It was the route they entered and exited by. They linked together and followed Pol as fog closed in on them again.
When they emerged from the fog, the sun was still glimmering on the horizon and they had adequate time to locate their gear and light small lanterns before cooking the simple meal at dusk. The skies had stayed reasonably clear at the base camp with occasional wisps of cloud floating overhead.
Wesley sat huddled in silence with the pages of drawings he had made laid one over the other on the ground in front of him. The dim lantern light did not make reading easy when the last light of day faded from the sky. Not far away, Doc and Margaret were huddled in a similar position with papers spread between them, talking in low tones. Pol, it seemed, had gone to sleep shortly after dinner. Wesley, too, was tired enough his eyes were blurring. They played tricks with the symbols, leading him to believe he could see through them, superimposing fragmented lines over one another. His mind painted the colors over the figures that he had seen on the rostrum. In the middle, spun the star.
In the half-awareness brought on by approaching sleep, Wesley’s mind slipped into channels he would consciously block. It was like this when he first made the leap from Wilton’s notes to musical language. He jerked awake to refocus on the maps in front of him. It was a strange way to draw maps, but if every direction led to the same point, then that point had to lie in every direction from all other points. The rostrum would be represented by the circumference of its circle, the avenues of pillars by the design inside.
He jerked himself awake again to stare at the patterned drawings laid one over the other, wondering what made him think of maps. This was a great mandala—a patterned design that held the secret of ancient faiths. He lost himself in the patterning of the mandala drawn into its rhythm. He was unaware of the fact that he hummed as he worked. His tongue worked against the roof of his mouth, clicking out time as his voice wandered through the maze of the mandala. He was unaware that Doc and Margaret stopped working and stared at him. He did not notice that Pol opened his eyes from sleep to look and listen.
When preparing for the trip, Wesley had carefully explained the use of voice as an instrument when discussing musical language.
“An oscilloscope will show that there is pitch in every sound,” he lectured to Doc and Margaret. “When we hold the notes and speak them at different rhythms, we essentially have music. But part of the mystique of the voice is that the notes are not clear. We vibrate with overtones and undertones. It is what separates a folksinger from an opera singer. The opera singer spends years training his voice to hit pure notes, hence the oft-referenced ability to burst a crystal wine glass with a sustained vocal note. It is not just hitting the right note and having the right volume. It is the purity of the note. On the other end of the spectrum, a crooner might have a wide range of overtones that enhance the emotional impact of the music—or that detract from it in some cases. I have heard of a choir in Bulgaria that can actually split their voices into two or more concise tones, though with the communists in control, I suppose I will never get to visit there. The voice is a mysterious instrument and can mimic many different orchestral parts. I find that when the piano is inadequate or the guitar has too little range, adding the voice will enhance the emotional impact of the music.”
The voice—Wesley’s voice—brought forward the mysteries of the symbols.
He focused on the star at the center. The voices played through him, following one channel until it broke off, then skipping abruptly to another, radiating from the star in primitive skipping patterns—five beats—pentamic syncopation. The primeval voices kept rising within and around him.
Fear. Beware the night. I am captive of the night. Who in his cleanness is pure? Who can face himself in the clear reflection of his mind at midnight? The darkness is unbroken.
The images that flooded their minds were brutal, what Doc later described as Dionysian. There was, pent up in the tones, a ravishing of being, made all the more unpleasant by the shape and eerie light of the waning moon. There was nothing bearing a sign of hope—nothing that permitted the hearers even that small cathartic of a complete act. It was primitive to the root of its character. When it ended, they sat stunned into silence, immersed in the nightmare conjured by Wesley’s voice.
Each awoke from the dream as a softer, more plaintive and beautiful lay called them back to reality. As they listened and relaxed, they realized that Pol was singing, perhaps had been singing for a long time. Each found comfort and hope in the soft searing tones. Without discussing the images that each had shared during this bizarre interlude, the group retired to their bedrolls and went off to sleep as Pol continued to sing.
Thursday, 14 July 1955, Edinburgh, Scotland
Rebecca woke from her sleep with a shiver, certain someone was there. Every sudden occurrence in the past three weeks had sent that foreboding chill across her senses. She could feel the tracery of the knife held against her breast. He was a creature of the night—one with the darkness that surrounded her—a phantom stalking her through her dreams.
No! He was not there. His subtle insinuations were not real. It was a dream. Of course, he was still in Scotland or England, but not here. Not now.
What was it then? What had called her up out of a deep sleep? She could still hear that vague ringing in her ears that all but overpowered the shallow breathing of Mrs. Weed a few feet away. It was almost a melody, almost an agony, too primitive for words. But the impact! An involuntary shudder shook her limbs again. This was no mere foreboding, but an outright warning. It called her to awaken, take notice, protect herself with every ounce of her strength.
She had never been afraid of the dark, but now it seemed too close for her. She could scarcely breathe. The room was hot and sweat trickled off her brow as she lay rigidly in bed.
“Alice?” The word forced its way from her mouth with the hope that a whisper would awaken the sleeper with whom Rebecca had shared a room since her initiation into the coven.
“What is it, Becca?” asked Mrs. Weed. Alice Weed was the widow of a Professor Weed at the University, whose writings on goddess worship were primary texts during Rebecca’s study in Edinburgh. “I heard you wake, Becca. What did you dream?”
“It wasn’t a dream, Alice. It was too real. I heard a warning.”
“Yes?” probed her friend. She could feel the effect in the darkened room.
“Why should I fear the night? I’ve never been frightened of the dark. But Wesley…” Rebecca made the unexpected connection between the primitive music and Wesley’s voice. “Wesley warned me to beware the night.”
“You are certain it was your husband?”
“Yes. It was Wesley’s voice as I have never heard it before. It was as if he was wringing out my lungs when he sang. I couldn’t breathe. The dark was suffocating me.”
“Could it have been meant for one of his companions?” Mrs. Weed asked.
“I don’t know. Can we turn on a light?”
“I’ve a candle here.” Rebecca turned her head away as light flared near Alice’s head. She had probably just lit a match, but Rebecca did not want to see. Too many strange things. She turned her head slowly back toward her companion to see the old lady swing her feet out of bed, holding the candle in one hand.
“Stay still, dearie. You needn’t move,” she said as Rebecca started to rise. Rebecca relaxed back on her pillow and watched as Mrs. Weed, The Water Maiden, silently invoked the guardians of each direction and placed herself into a mild trance. “Now, Hart, just look at the candle. Focus on the flame. It dances a single dance to all music. The flame is the center of all that is. The flame is the heart and soul, now leaping in ecstasy, now quivering in fear. The flame is the center of your being. You see the flame. You are the flame. Let your mind be one with the flame.”
Only Rebecca’s open, transfixed eyes were a clue to the non-sleep trance she entered. Soon, they, too, slowly slid closed. This time there were no dreams, no nightmares, no warnings. Sleep was deep, opaque, and solemn.
Mrs. Weed turned her own gaze to the candle. For a long time, she stared silently into the dancing flame and then began to intone low syllables. At first, they were scarcely audible, never more than a whisper. She quested deeply into the lingering presence of the warning—felt the intensity of its impact on Rebecca. Yet, deep in the primitive howling of the spell, she found hope. A key to the trusting, the pure, the innocent. There was a throbbing, seductive presence that spoke beneath the booming warning which said, “Come. Come. Come.”
She held her right hand above the candle, feeling its heat, not quite close enough to burn. She searched in the candle for the essence of the light. She searched it with her hands and her mind. After several minutes, she lifted her right hand with the candle in her left slowly sinking. As they parted, the flame lengthened, drawn upward by the movement until, at last, it split. A clear ball of light was held in the palm of her right hand.
“Ancient powers of the night, hear thy servant. We have heard thy warning. We stand before you to consecrate within The Hart thine promise as ward against all evil.”
Mrs. Weed knelt beside Rebecca and guided the globe of light above the sleeping woman’s head.
“May love guide your steps and light your path. May you be a light in the darkness when danger surrounds and dispel the danger as darkness flees. All this may you do to claim promise, hope, and love in the midst of remorse, in the depths of despair.”
The light slipped from her hand and came to rest on Rebecca’s forehead. Here it paused and was gradually absorbed into the flesh of the sleeping woman. Her face glowed as the light sank deeper within her. Mrs. Weed raised her hands to the sky.
By all the power of three times three
This spell bound around shall be
To do no harm, nor turn on me;
As I do speak, so mote it be.
Sunday, 1 August 1937, South Whitley, Indiana
Wesley dreamed. It was not the first time in his ten years of life he had this dream. It was one of his earliest memories. Nor would the dream ever seem to release him. But this night it was so real that when he awoke for church in the morning, he thought he was still dreaming.
He stands in a cornfield with the farmhouse about two hundred yards away over his right shoulder. The corn is high, but it doesn’t obstruct his view. He faces east to watch the sunrise. It’s good to know the directions. He wouldn’t get lost. Every direction has a purpose.
History is in the east. The Revolutionary War, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and across the ocean, England, the Roman Empire, Jerusalem. East contains all the glorious past of the world—the foundation of history and the origin of humanity. Eden is in the East.
He turns slowly to his right. The south is a strange country of the wild frontier. The slavers of the Confederacy threaten another Civil War. Mountain men with illegal stills feud with one another. The heat of the sun beats down on the South, and beyond lie the Aztec ruins of Mexico and the jungles of the Amazon. South is a hot, wild, threatening place.
Farther to his right he faces the setting sun over the maple grove that parts him from the city. He must have taken a long time in turning, following the sun, to now see it setting. The City. Not just the local business center, but Chicago—the only city he has ever visited. The City holds Christmas where people gather in great crowds to shop in the stores of the Loop. The City had more people than he imagines the rest of the world to have. West is not wild; it is the most civilized place he knows.
Finally, his slowly spinning arc of the compass brings him to face the darkness of the northern skies. But North is not threatening. North is a promise of faith and safety. Michigan is north. He’d visited relatives there. And beyond Michigan is the Yukon. Here, Aurora Borealis ruled. He stands quietly waiting for the flash of brilliance to come. If ever there is trouble, North is the holy place, the direction to run for protection. He would climb the Northern Steps to the holy temple of Aurora Borealis. Vast open gentle steps away from the violence and worry of the world. Ever up the steps. All directions are North now. If only he could reach the temple, he would stay with the three sisters of his dreams, Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy, following him all the days of his life, dwelling in the house of the Lord forever.
And he would never again fear the night.
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
