Part I
It was the fifth of January, Christmas Eve on the Russian Orthodox calendar. While Reuben was having his breakfast, Michael Keyes appeared in the doorway of his room and said that it was time they talked about the assignment Reuben had accepted. Reuben was to be come to the old man’s office at 9:30 sharp.
Reuben had time to finish his breakfast, get dressed, and read for a while before starting out for the main house. The old man’s office was on the third floor.
A lot had changed around the place in the past few weeks. Contractors were busy refurbishing the dacha. It was a sizeable project that would take months to finish, but the immediate improvements were dramatic. While a glazier replaced all the panes of missing glass in the four front windows, a team of carpenters was at work replacing the banister on the front staircase. The new banister was functional, not ornate, but its major contribution to the room was what it took away: a sense brokeness and neglect.
A six-foot fir tree stood in the great hall. Dwarfed by the overall size of the room and the enormous table which had been set within it, the tree seemed modest. It was trimmed with red bows and white lights. Evergreen and holly boughs were placed on the mantle and in the window sills throughout the dacha, and a large wreath had been mounted over the front door.
The dacha had become a cheery place, and this had to do with more than just appearances. Betty’s health had improved noticeably. Dr. Chevlenko was cautious about saying what the cause of the improvement was, but there was no question that Betty was in less pain, was feeling stronger, and looked better than she had since first coming to the dacha.
She had supervised the decorating of the house and was planning a dinner — the first entertaining that the Keyes had done in their home — for Christmas Eve. It would be a relatively small affair, with only the Keyes, Reuben, Sergei and his family, and the staffs both of the clinic and of the household. Not more than 15 were expected.
Betty had gone on several outings to Moscow to make preparations, bringing Reuben with her the first few times. But now she refused to let him come a long. He was a distraction, she had told him. He was no help with shopping. She decided to hire a girl to help her out around the place, someone who could provide some real assistance.
Reuben used the back stairs (the front stairs being a construction zone) to reach the old man’s office. The door to these stairs, always locked before, was standing wide open. He made his way to the top and discovered that little work had been done on the third floor. The hallway was dark. All of the doors he passed appeared to be boarded shut. At the end of the hall, a door stood slightly ajar; light shone from the open doorway into the hall.
The old man’s office was a simple room: just a bed, a desk, a cabinet, and a couple of chairs. The desk had four or five telephones sitting on it, which was one of the old man’s trademarks. The room was entirely strewn with papers and books. Except for the bed, this place was a replica of every office the old man had ever occupied: a testament to the many different tasks he loved putting himself to at once, the many different ideas he was always entertaining. The old man sat on the floor studying a large schematic.
"Is that the seating chart for dinner tonight?" Reuben asked
Keyes looked up.
"Nothing quite that complex." He gestured at the drawing, which was at least three feet wide by five feet long. "This is an idea one of the guys back home has been pushing for a long time. See? It’s a whole new take on a grocery distribution center."
Reuben looked at the drawing for a few seconds, but couldn’t make sense of it.
"Wait a minute," he said, taking in the scale of the picture. "Are those little rectangles trucks?"
"Yeah, see they drive in here and get their loads pre-assembled off these carousels, here. Meanwhile, other trucks are driving in on this side and unloading produce, which is sorted and put on palettes and loaded onto the carousel."
Reuben shook his head.
"It’s enormous. How much would it cost to put something like this in place?
"I can’t say. It depends on how successful we are at getting the food suppliers and trucking companies and supermarkets to go in on it. Of course, they’ll all save a bundle in the long run if they do."
Reuben looked at the schematic for a while longer. It was a grand vision, a massive undertaking.
"So this is my new project? A grocery warehouse?"
"No," said Keyes. He chuckled. "Lord, no. Don’t I have enough problems?"
He got up and walked over to his desk.
"I got some other things in the same package that those plans came in." He sat down at his desk and lifted a sheaf of papers.
"This is what I want to talk to you about," he said.
Reuben took a seat across from him at the desk. Keyes passed the papers to him.
"Have you ever seen this before?"
It was a manuscript. Reuben couldn’t make out the language, but he would have guessed Latin. The pages were colorful, and were heavily illustrated. Some of the pages looked like they were taken from a botanical catalog: intricate drawings of plants accompanied by what appeared to be elaborate written descriptions. Flipping though, he saw that other pages had detailed geometric designs, and what looked like a zodiacal calendar. Still other pages had drawings of human figures, female, and what appeared to be a complex system of water pipes. Reuben looked at the manuscript for a long while.
"No," he said. "I’ve never seen it. And I’ve never seen anything quite like it, either. It looks old. What is it?"
"What you’re looking at is a copy. The real manuscript is currently under lock and key at one of the Ivy League schools. It was found in the twenties in Italy, part of some old collection of books. But it didn’t fit in with the other books. In fact, it doesn’t fit in with anything."
"How old is it?"
"Depends on who you ask. Anywhere from the thirteenth century to the seventeenth. But they say that there’s good reason to believe that the original document is itself a copy."
Reuben leafed through the pages.
"How would they be able to tell that?"
"Well, first there are no mistakes. That doesn’t necessarily prove anything, but it suggests it. It’s easier to get something exactly right if you’re copying it than it does if you’re making it up. Also, look at the placement of the words. See how the spacing is kind of funny? It looks like whoever was doing the writing was trying to match the word placement from some source document, rather than just rattling the words off."
Reuben stopped and looked at a page with an intricate, zodiacal figure.
"What does it say? Is this Latin?"
"Not exactly. They say there are two different languages represented, or it could just be two different writing styles. Nobody knows for sure, because nobody can read the thing. The text is a combination of Latin abbreviations and Arab numerals. No one can make heads or tails of what it says. If it even says anything."
Reuben looked at it again.
"But obviously you think it means something," he said.
"Yes," said Keyes. "I think it’s a code."
"So you have cryptographers looking at it?"
The old man nodded.
"Not me per se. Cryptographers have been trying to crack this thing for years. I have put a few extra people on it. But I don’t think they’re going to find anything."
"Why not? You said you think it actually says something."
"But there are plenty of others who say it doesn’t. It could just be gibberish, the product of a very early hoax. It could also be the only surviving fragment of a lost language, which would make it pretty damn hard to decipher."
"But you don’t think it’s that, either."
"No. I just think that whoever created it knew what they were doing. They set it up so you can’t decode it unless you have their key. And their key isn’t included."
"Really?" said Reuben. "They came up with this in — what did you say — the thirteenth century? Before computers? Before World War II?"
"It looks that way. Actually, there are encryption techniques that have been around for a long time. You don’t need a computer to create an "unbreakable" code. But even so, I think we’re talking about a pretty smart bunch of people."
"What people?"
The old man sat back, scratching his chin.
"A group of them," he said after a moment. He cleared his throat. "A secret group."
"A secret group," Reuben repeated. "With a mysterious encoded ancient manuscript."
Keyes grinned.
"I know what you’re thinking, son. They’re called the brotherhood of the Magus Majorum. The Greater Magic."
"Aha. I had a feeling we were headed towards something like this. So what’s the Greater Magic?"
"Nobody knows. Like I say, they’re a secret group. They may be alchemists. It’s been suggested that there’s a connection between them and Al Razi."
Reuben blinked.
"Am I supposed to know who that is?" he asked.
"He was Persian, lived in Baghdad in the ninth century. He was a physician and an alchemist. One of the smartest men living at his time. Or ever, I suppose. His surviving writings are all classics. On the medical side, he wrote catalogs of illnesses with effective treatments. But he was also a philosopher, and he wrote about alchemy as both a practical discipline and a set of mystical truths."
Reuben said nothing.
"Are you familiar with the practical side of alchemy?" Keyes asked.
"Not really," said Reuben. "Oh, wait. You mean…turning lead into gold, right?"
Keyes nodded.
"That’s where it starts. The lead-into-gold idea was a kind of proof of concept. Lead was considered a base metal, while gold was higher and more pure. Al Razi’s school of alchemy was all about transforming base things into higher forms. Not just objects — they wanted to change themselves and others into higher beings. Immortal beings."
"I see. And this is all part of the practical side? I’d be curious to know what the other side was like."
The old man got up. On the cabinet at his bedside sat a stainless steel percolator. A green metal tree with white mugs stood beside it. He removed one of the mugs and looked at Reuben inquiringly.
"Sure," said Reuben.
"We’ll just keep it practical for now," Keyes continued, with no trace of irony. He poured the coffee.
"Anyhow, most of the so-called alchemists that we’re familiar with in the west were European charlatans who came long after Al Razi. They practiced a watered-down version of alchemy that had to do with finding the Philosopher’s Stone."
Keyes took down another mug. He opened the cabinet and produced a bottle of scotch. He poured himself a generous shot, then treated Reuben to the same inquiring look.
"Just coffee," said Reuben. "So what about this stone?"
"It was of a sort of catalyst" The old man returned to the desk. He handed Reuben his coffee. "It could change lead into gold; it could bestow eternal life. And that’s all most anybody knew or cared about."
Reuben took a sip of his coffee.
"So what’s that got to do with this manuscript? And what does any of this have to do with us?"
"Well, think about it, Reuben What these folks were after was a way to transmute human life into a higher and purer state."
"Meaning what?"
"They wanted to perfect a kind of human life that’s as different from what we know as gold is from lead. Life as we know it is drab and painful; it’s mired in all kinds of corruption; it ends in death. The higher form is free of sickness and pain; it includes moral as well as physical perfection; it never ends."
"It sounds like going to heaven."
"Similar ideas, but the alchemists believed that this higher state could be achieved in the here and now. You don’t have to wait for some afterlife."
Reuben sat back and sighed. He didn’t much like where this was going.
"And you agree with them?" he asked.
The old man sipped his coffee.
"I know how you feel about this kind of thing, Reuben. But there is more to this than meets the eye. Al Razi may have been more successful than history records. A lot more successful."
"He found the Philosopher’s Stone?"
"I don’t know. I personally think the stone is a red herring. Al Razi believed in it, but I don’t see why doing the things he did would have required the use of a magic rock."
"What did he do?"
Keyes smiled.
"Later. There’ll be time for that. Anyway, it may not have been Al Razi, it may have been one of his successors. But whoever it was that did it, it was recorded, and it has been passed on. It’s maybe even been built on and improved over the years. Who knows?"
"But what was it?" Reuben asked. He stood up, agitated.
"Did he actually change lead into gold? Did he bestow immortality on someone? Did he write that book?"
He bent over the grocery warehouse schematic and studied it for a moment. The old man said nothing.
"Well?" Reuben continued. "I mean, where is the guy? If he uncovered the secrets of immortality, he should still be around. Are you going to send me off looking for him?"
Keyes leaned back in his chair and looked at Reuben for a moment. He took a long sip of his drink. He smiled, remembering something.
"You never had a chance to meet Sergei’s boy."
"No," said Reuben. "No, I didn’t. I didn’t even know he had a son."
"He was a great kid. Always had something smart to say."
"Oh," Reuben said. Something fell in place.
"He was interested in the space program, wasn’t he?"
The old man blinked.
"Among other things, yes. How did you know that?"
"I bet he was a big fan of Yuri Gagarin’s. Could tell you anything you wanted to know about him."
Keyes looked puzzled.
"So Sergei did tell you about Yuri."
Reuben considered this: Sergei’s son, Yuri. Past tense.
Dead, obviously. Along with Charlotte. And Reuben’s parents. And even Pasha.
And soon enough, Betty.
"I guess he did, sort of. Not very much. How old was he?"
"He was just about to turn sixteen."
"How did he die? And when?"
Keyes sighed. He took another drink.
"It was about a year ago. Hit and run; the streets can be very dangerous in Moscow. The driver got away clean, although Sergei still pursues the matter."
Several things made sense now, like why an ex-KGB man would be so sentimental about a dead cosmonaut, and why Sergei had bristled at the mention of a hit-and-run killing.
"I’ve tried to help him all I could with that," Keyes continued, "but it’s hopeless. Sergei is never going to find the man who killed his boy. That’s the way it is."
Reuben shook his head sadly. He looked up at the old man for a moment, then looked away impatiently.
"What’s bothering you?"
Reuben sighed.
"How can you sit there and admit that it’s impossible to solve a year-old hit-and-run case, and yet think that it is possible that we’re going to go out and find some secret society that’s guarding the mysteries of the universe? That we’re not only going to find them, but that we’re going to talk them into giving us some of their ‘great magic’ so we can save Betty’s life. I mean that is the plan, isn’t it?"
Keyes stared hard at Reuben, and said nothing for a moment.
"I’ll answer your question," he said, "but let me ask you something, first." He reached across the desk and took the manuscript. He flipped through the pages until he found the one he was looking for. He held it up.
"What’s this a picture of?"
Reuben looked at it.
"A sunflower."
"No, it isn’t. Look again." He flung the book across the table. Reuben sat back down. He picked up the page and studied it."
"Look at the petals," said Keyes. "They aren’t right. And look at the seeds. You know what sunflower seeds look like. Those aren’t even close."
Reuben looked at the picture more closely. It was clearly not a sunflower.
"Yeah. So what?"
"It isn’t just cryptographers who’ve studied this manuscript. Botanists have, too. And that plant you’re looking at is definitely not a sunflower. In fact, as far as anybody can tell, it isn’t a plant that’s ever existed anywhere on Earth."
Reuben looked at it again.
"And the same is true for the rest of the plants in the manuscript. Look at them. Detailed, intricate, naturalistic drawings of plants that don’t exist."
Reuben thumbed through the pages once again, looking at the drawings of plants and the odd depictions of naked women happily bathing in the midst of complex plumbing.
What was this thing, anyway?
"I know," the old man continued, "so what? An indecipherable book with pictures of plants that don’t exist. It doesn’t prove anything. It’s just kind of odd. That’s all the botanists think, and the cryptographers. It’s an oddity.
"But my gut tells me different, son. It tells me that we’re right on the edge of something. Sometimes, you can tell when something is right. Can’t you? Or maybe not, maybe you can just tell when something is wrong."
Reuben wondered. He realized that he had been thinking the same thing himself. There was something wrong, something horribly wrong, with the world.
Everybody dies.
That’s what she had said. Everybody dies, she said.
His head hurt suddenly. It throbbed with the thought: everybody dies.
But wait.
He stopped himself. What the hell was he thinking? Who was she? There wasn’t anything wrong with the world; it was a simple fact of existence. Of course everybody dies. That’s life. You accept it after a while; it’s called growing up.
Everybody dies, and everybody accepts it.
But there was something else.
"No," he said aloud. "Damn it."
Reuben was on his feet again, and trembling.
The old man looked at him, surprised by the forcefulness of his response.
"It’s what she’s been trying to tell me," he said. He looked plaintively to the old man.
"Who’s been trying to tell you?" asked Keyes
Reuben’s eyes grew very wide and he began to laugh. And he kept laughing. He could feel the laughter pounding in his head, but even this intense pain made him want to laugh harder and harder, and then he was gasping for breath, which made him want to laugh still more, and then —
"Reuben!"
The old man had come around the desk and was standing in front of him. He placed his hands on Reuben’s shoulders and began to shake him.
"For God’s sake, son. Get ahold of yourself."
Reuben felt the urge to laugh more, but he resisted. He was gasping for air, catching his breath. He didn’t want to laugh any more. Then he felt it start again — beyond his control — his body wracked with trembling fits. He buried his face in his hands, weeping uncontrollably. The old man pulled him close.
"I’m sorry, son," he said, holding on to him.
Posted by Phil at March 1, 2004 12:00 AM | TrackBack