Part IV
(Read earlier chapters.)
Reuben drummed his fingers impatiently on the table.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. “I look at some paintings, play a card game, and now you’re ready to share all your arcane knowledge with me? That’s all it took?”
Ahmad laughed.
“Did you want it to be more difficult than that?”
“To tell you the truth, I never expected to find you people at all. But you’re right. If I ever did find you, I didn’t expect you to be such…pushovers.”
Ahmad laughed again, joined by Keyes.
“What’s so funny, old man?” Reuben asked, annoyed.
Keyes grew silent.
“Nothing, really,” he said, clearing his throat. “It’s just that I’ve known Iskandar here for — what, 18 years? And all this time he’s been supposedly helping me to track this group down.”
He turned to Ahmad.
“You’ve been lying to me for a long time.”
Ahmad looked down, seeming to study the tabletop for a moment.
“I apologize for that. The deception is regrettable, but it was necessary.”
“Well, excuse me,” said Reuben, “but how do we know you aren’t lying now?”
Ahmad shrugged.
“You can only accept my assurance that I am not.”
Keyes nodded at this.
“I do accept your assurance, Iskandar. And your apology. But Reuben’s got a point. This did all seem kind of easy. I mean, is this how everyone becomes a member?”
“No. This is just one of dozens of possible tests. This one is usually administered by showing the candidate pictures of the Camera. It was interesting that you mentioned Escher, Reuben. I have a different test that I can perform by asking you to examine some Escher prints. Had we been anywhere else, I probably would have done that. But I couldn’t resist making the trip. Not when we were so close to Mantua.”
“So there are dozens of possible tests, but you only have to take one?” asked Reuben
“Not at all. An initiate is usually subjected to dozens of tests over a period of months or years before being validated. Few are ever selected. I regret to say that Michael, here, was tested a number of years ago and he…did not pass.”
“Now hold on,” said Keyes. “what are you talking about? You never gave me any tests.”
Ahmad took a moment to choose his words.
“Apparently, you were never aware that you were being tested. Which, in the early stages, is how it is supposed to be.”
Keyes took a drink of his coffee and looked off into the distance, remembering. After a while, he smiled.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “You smooth-talking son of a bitch. All those highly theoretical discussions we’ve had about art and mathematics. And here I just thought you were some kind of…intellectual.”
Ahmad laughed again.
“I may yet be,” he said. “Many of our conversations were just what they seemed: two old friends passing the time together pleasantly. But some of them, early on, were not.”
“And I failed?” said Keyes.
“I’m afraid so.”
“I never even made it out of the first round, did I? Or I would have known that I was being tested.”
“Don’t take it badly. Most initiates fail. But none of that matters now. You have been accepted.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. You give me a bunch of tests and I fail. You give Reuben only one — a pretty damn easy one, it looked like — and now suddenly we’re both in?”
“There was nothing easy about what Reuben just did. But he did have an advantage. Most initiates have never seen the diagram before they take the test. I’m sure it was easier for Reuben to recognize it than it would be for one of them.”
Reuben nodded.
“Today’s test was to some extent a formality. As I said, we have certain practices that we have to maintain. One of our rules is that no initiate can be validated without passing at least one test. So I subjected Reuben to this one. But his admission to the society — as well as your own by way of association — was a forgone conclusion.”
“But why?” asked Reuben.
“We aren’t pushovers, Reuben. You secured your membership through your unique accomplishment.”
Reuben looked bewildered.
“Which is what?”
Ahmad took a long sip from his coffee.
“You traveled to this world from another.”
So there it was.
Reuben got up and went to the counter. He pointed to his cup and held up his index finger. Universal sign language for one coffee, please. Three young women sat at a table near the counter talking quietly and giggling. Reuben figured they were late teens, early twenties. There was something irritating about how perfectly Italian they were: their long hair, their angular faces, and their short leather skirts. No doubt they belonged to the three sleek black motor scooters parked out front. The whole tableau was right out of a perfume ad in one of those glossy women’s magazines.
Reuben noticed that the women would turn quickly away from him every time he looked their way.
And more giggling would ensue.
What was this, he wondered. Flirtation? Curiosity? Were they repulsed by the scar on his head?
“Hey girls,” he said.
One of them turned and looked directly at Reuben. Girlish mirth immediately gave way to fashion-model severity. She treated him to a look of deadly disdain.
“You,” said Reuben. “Have you ever thought about hooking up with somebody from out of town? I mean like…way out of town?”
“Reuben…” said Keyes.
“Non parlo di inglesi,” the young woman said, and turned back to her friends.
The café owner handed Reuben his espresso with a scowl. Reuben winked at him as he handed over his cash.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just not myself. It looks like maybe somebody else is. Or rather was. If you see what I’m saying.”
The café owner handed him his change and turned around in disgust.
Reuben started back toward his seat, still smiling at the girls. On some unspoken cue, they got up and headed for the door.
Reuben sat back down.
“You need to watch what you’re saying, Reuben,” said Keyes.
“Oh? Why’s that? Iskandar, are you going to throw me out of the club if I don’t behave? Right after saying I could join?”
Ahmad looked concerned.
“I can see that this is all quite troubling for you, Reuben. And I don’t blame you for being troubled. But I’m afraid there’s a good deal more you need to know.”
“Troubling?” said Reuben. “This isn’t troubling. It’s just background noise. Unless you’re going to be able to tell me something really useful about what’s happening to me, it’s just noise. Let me tell you what’s troubling, Mr. Ahmad. What’s troubling is when you find out that you’re dead.”
He poured some milk into his coffee. Then he added a sugar cube. Then two more.
“What the hell,” he said, smiling. “But I take that back. What’s troubling is when you learn that maybe you’re dead, maybe you’re alive, but it really doesn’t matter. Because either way, your life is a lie.”
“Now, son,” Keyes protested, “I don’t think it’s fair to say —”
Reuben held up his hand, cutting him off.
“I have a question for you, Iskandar. I was talking to Mrs. Keyes about all this the other day. She brought up a good point. How many of these parallel worlds do you think there are?”
Ahmad shrugged.
“I’m not sure that I accept the idea of parallel worlds.”
Reuben’s tone of voice grew cold.
“But you just said that I went from one world to another.”
“Forgive the inconsistency, Reuben. Perhaps I was making an unnecessary technical distinction. In everyday speech, I often talk in terms of parallel universes. But few of us in the society actually subscribe to the idea of them. Personally, I believe there is only one universe. But there are many points of reference from within it. Those different points of reference are the reality behind the language of many worlds.”
Reuben thought about this. It seemed he had heard something like this before, but he couldn’t recall where.
“Let me see if I understand. So from one point of view, it might look like somebody’s alive. But from the other, it might look like they’re dead?”
Ahmad shook his head.
“No, it isn’t a matter of what things look like. As viewed from one point of reference, the individual actually would be alive. As viewed from another, he would be dead. From still another, he would never have been born in the first place.”
“So you’re saying that I’ve somehow shifted my point of reference.”
“That’s right.”
“I mean, really shifted it. I want to know how I did that. But first, I want to go back to my original question. How many of these different points of reference are there?”
Ahmad shrugged again.
“It may be an infinite number. Or it may be an unimaginably high number, but still finite. I don’t have those answers, Reuben. But I would like to put you in contact with someone who might.”
“Good,” said Reuben. “Perfect. Give me your phone, old man.”
Keyes looked puzzled, but he reached into his coat for his mobile phone. He handed it to Reuben.
“What’s the number?” he asked Ahmad, his fingers poised to dial. “Let’s get this guy on the phone right now. I want to know how many of these parallel universes there are. Excuse me, points of reference. I want to know how many I get shot in. Or from. Whatever the hell it is.”
“Reuben, please…” said Keyes.
“Well wouldn’t you?” Reuben demanded. “Maybe it’s all of them. Getting shot seems to be my thing. Maybe I’ve found an unimaginably high number — but still finite! — of ways to do it. From my particular point of reference, I got lucky. I was shot by a drunk and disoriented Russian.”
He tapped his forehead.
“Survivable. But other versions of me apparently didn’t do so well. They had to contend with someone who was surprisingly a much better shot. My wife.”
Keyes looked stricken.
“Reuben, I‘m sorry. I didn’t know you knew.”
“Betty told me,” Reuben said simply. He took another sip from his coffee.
They were all silent for a while.
“I’m also truly sorry, Reuben” said Ahmad. “What a bizarre set of circumstances. But I’m afraid we can’t call the individual I have in mind. It will have to be a face to face meeting.”
“Why?” asked Reuben. “Who is he, anyway?”
“My counterpart,” said Ahmad. “The leader of the Congrigatio in Ars Magica Minor.”
“The what?” asked Keyes. “The Lesser Magic? I never heard of that.”
Ahmad smiled.
“No. And you never would have, had you not been admitted to the society of the Greater Magic.”
“Wait. Shouldn’t it work the other way around?” asked Reuben.
“Well,” said Ahmad, “one would think so. But you’re missing some vital information. There is no Greater Magic. The organization you’ve just been admitted to is a sham. It’s a hoax. We exist only as a smoke screen.”
Reuben looked at Keyes. It’s about time, he thought. Finally, one of the con artists the old man associated with was admitting he was as phony.
“A smoke screen for what?” he asked.
“Obviously, to protect the one that’s not a hoax,” said Keyes. “The society of the Lesser Magic.”
“That’s right,” Ahmad agreed. “We call it Magic Minor, by the way.”
Reuben rolled his eyes.
“Well, I don’t have any trouble believing your group is a sham,” said Reuben. “your initiation test notwithstanding. By our own admission, you’ve been lying to Mr. Keyes all this time. But why should we believe that one of these groups is real when one of them is an admitted fraud?”
Ahmad smiled.
“You may believe whatever you like. But ask yourself this question: why are you being told this here, in this world? Why was there no mention of it in the other world? Mr. Keyes apparently knows both myself and Mr. Coffey in both worlds.”
“Coffey,” Reuben repeated. “David Coffey?” Reuben suddenly remembered where he had heard some of this talk about points of reference before. It was on his train ride to St. Petersburg/Leningrad.
“That’s right,” said Ahmad.
“He’s part of your group?”
“He is,” said Ahmad. “But he would never have admitted to being so. His job was to keep Mr. Keyes, here, from learning the truth about us.”
Keyes looked stunned for a moment. The he smiled at Ahmad.
“I didn’t realize that you and David knew each other,” he said.
“Of course you didn’t,” said Ahmad. “You thought he worked for you, after all. His job was to keep you busy. To distract you with shreds of evidence that seem promising, but lead nowhere. I had a duty to protect my society. It is difficult to dissuade a man of your persistence, Michael. But I can tell you very frankly that, had circumstances not changed, Mr. Coffey would still be hard at work keeping you off the trail.”
“And the change in circumstances was my return from the grave?” asked Reuben.
“Absolutely. A few weeks ago, Mr. Keyes approached Mr. Coffey with what he believed might be evidence of the work of the society of the Society of the Greater Magic. A man who had died some time before was suddenly alive again.”
Keyes nodded.
“It seemed like a long shot. Everything I had heard about the Society told me they were involved in alchemy, not necromancy, but I was grasping at straws. I needed an explanation.”
For the first time, it occurred to Reuben that his reappearance was more than just an occasion for Keyes’ to rejoice at the return of his lost godson. It was that, to be sure, but there was something else. For a man who had devoted many years of his life to the pursuit of subjects largely ignored or (when noticed) ridiculed by most of the rest of the world, the undeniable inexplicability of Reuben’s showing up alive in a Soviet prison would have to be a triumph of vindication for Keyes.
“So what convinced you people that the old man was on to something?” he asked.
“Once reviewed, the proof is very persuasive. You’ll forgive me, Reuben, if I tell you that the remains buried in Denver are a perfect genetic match.”
Reuben looked at Keyes.
“You dug me up?”
The old man grew pale again. He squirmed in his chair as he tried to formulate an answer.
“Never mind,” said Reuben, “you had to be sure it was me, didn’t you?”
“And it wasn’t just the DNA evidence,” Ahmad continued. “Identical dental records, fingerprints. Even if you had a secret identical twin, which there was no reason to believe, it would have been very difficult to pull off such a hoax.”
“So you figured out that I somehow got here from a different frame of reference?”
Ahmad nodded.
“But how did you figure that? I would think that you’d go more with the old man’s explanation, that somebody used your minor magic to bring me back from the dead.”
“Magic Minor,” said Ahmad, correcting Reuben’s word order. “First, while I am not a practitioner of the art, I know a bit about it. And I can say with some confidence that Magic Minor cannot be used to bring someone back from the dead. At least not in the way you’re thinking, resuscitating a corpse like Dr. Frankenstein. Besides, how could anyone believe that you had been brought back from the dead? Your body was still dead and buried. And is still dead and buried.”
Keyes winced.
“Forgive me, Michael.”
The old man nodded.
“It’s all right,’ he said, “Go on.”
“Well, in any event, it was clear to me that this was an instance of Magic Minor. The first bona fide case that I have ever encountered.”
Reuben put this together.
“So do people use Magic Minor to do what I did? To somehow move from one scenario to another?”
“Precisely,” said Ahmad. “That is precisely what Magic Minor is.”
He drained his coffee.
“And it is the only real magic that ever was. Or likely that ever will be.”
“But wait,” said Keyes. “What about alchemy and the philosopher’s stone and all that stuff?’’
“Serious pursuits, to be sure,” said Ahmad. “A few of the most advanced practitioners of the alchemical arts had a glimpse of Magic Minor.”
“Al Razi?” said Keyes.
“Among others. But for most it was only a glimpse. It was not nearly enough. So by and large they, and those who came after them, traveled down one pointless road after another in pursuit of riches and eternal life. Roads leading nowhere.”
He looked toward Keyes with a half smile. “But still of great use to us, of course.”
“How’s that?” said Reuben.
The old man smiled.
“That’s their smoke screen, son.”
Reuben considered this.
“So what about this mysterious document. Just a red herring? Another fake?”
“Not at all,” said Ahmad. “Or I suppose it depends on what you mean by a fake. It is the Book of the Greater Magic. If ever translated, it will be revealed that it is a treatise on alchemy. Just as many of its investigators already suspect. It purports a fantastical and widely inaccurate description of how the universe works, but not much more so than many other documents from the period. The eventual translators will be delighted at first by the secrets it promises to deliver. Yet ultimately disappointed to find that it is just another ancient book of mystical blather. A bit more confusing and frustrating than most, perhaps, but nothing more.”
“And the diagram?” said Reuben. “The one that was on the card. The one that’s also in the mosque in Turkey and the temple in Tibet?”
“A link to the truth, to be sure. Even the most fanciful treatises on alchemy have a few of those. There is a connection between that mandala and the practice of Magic Minor. What that connection is, I cannot tell you. I have not been initiated into the mysteries. ”
“But other than that one symbol, there’s nothing special about the manuscript?” asked Keyes.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. The manuscript has something in common with our friend, here.”
He set his cup down.
“It, too, came from another world.”
Reuben stared hard at Ahmad.
“Point of reference,” he said.
“Even so,” said Ahmad. “The book of the Greater Magic is the perfect decoy. It is a truly mysterious artifact: the arcane language; the esoteric illustrations. An entire sub discipline has grown up within the field of crypto-botany dedicated just to the study of its illustrations of plants.”
“And there’s no danger that someone will eventually figure out what the thing says?” asked Keyes.
“Why?” said Ahmad, smiling faintly. “Are your people getting close?”
The old man snorted.
“Probably not as close as they think.”
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. To decipher its meaning is to learn nothing. But there is something else about that manuscript, something known only to members of the society into which the two of you have just been admitted.”
“What’s that?” asked Reuben.
“The fact that it was once part of a set.”
“A set?” said Keyes. “Meaning that you had more red herrings you were prepared to throw in my path?”
“No, Michael,” said Ahmad. “Meaning that there is a second book, the Book of Magic Minor, which contains all the answers that you and Reuben have been looking for.”
“You have this book?” Reuben asked.
“No, my associate does.”
“The head of the Magic Minor group.”
“Yes.”
“And he can read it?”
“Well…” said Ahmad. It seemed there was something that he wanted to say, but then he thought better of it. “The book was translated long ago. By design, I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of how much of it is read and understood today. You’re going to have to talk to my associate about that.”
“And where do I find this associate?” asked Reuben.
Ahmad smiled.
“It’s a long way from here, I’m afraid.”
Posted by Phil at February 29, 2004 11:59 AM | TrackBack