Part IV
(Read earlier chapters.)
Reuben looked at the piece of paper with the account number on it, then looked back at me.
“You have got to be kidding,” he said.
I stared at him in silence.
“Miss Wong,” he added.
I sat back in my chair, preparing myself for the exchange. A bit of resistance is to be expected in these circumstances, after all.
“When I say something, I mean it. You don’t want to muck about with this. I believe in second chances, but you’re already on yours.”
Reuben exhaled. He wadded the paper up and tossed it onto my desk. He was still bristling with the charge of disrupting the waveform. I could see that he was shaken by the experience — as much as I had been, or even more — but he wasn’t letting on. Or at least he was trying not to. Chalk it up to the aforementioned Yank Alpha Male Tough Guy mindset.
“You said you would help Betty.”
I made no reply.
“Miss Wong.”
There. That was more like it.
“After you complete your training, you’re going to have a job to do. It’s related to the problem we discussed earlier. When we have finished that, we’ll see what we can do about your friend.”
Reuben considered this.
“Maybe I don’t need any training. What did I just do? You said I was on the verge of changing worlds again. If I can already do it, why do I need your help?”
I smiled at him.
“Well, by all means, be my guest. And good luck finding your way back home.”
I offered him my hand.
“We’ll just say goodbye, then, Reuben. We shan’t see each other again.”
He stared at my hand. He did not take it.
“While I’m wishing you luck, good luck staying out of places that look exactly like home, but that have a poison atmosphere which kills you instantly on contact. And good luck avoiding the machine worlds where nano-bugs tag you as a contaminant and reduce you to dust in a matter of seconds. Or worlds where you’re organically compatible, but where time is drastically slowed. So you can step in and step right out again — only to find that a million years have passed in the world you’re trying to get back to.”
I could see that I was getting to him, but he wasn’t quite ready to give up yet.
“I did all right on my own the first time.”
My laughter in response to that preposterous statement was quite genuine.
“Forgive me, Reuben,” I said, catching my breath. “I think that you and I may have incompatible ideas about what it means when one says that one has done all right.”
“So are they really different worlds, or are they just different points of reference on the same world?”
Ah, cleverly switching to the subject that truly interested him. And giving me the chance to move in for the kill.
“You will address me as Miss Wong. And if you want your first lesson, you’re going to have to pay the course fee.”
He shook his head.
“Miss Wong, you want me to pay you a million dollars just for the privilege of helping you solve your problem?”
I nodded.
“That and the privilege of getting back to where you came from. If possible. Plus the privilege of attempting to find a cure for your friend.”
“If possible.”
I nodded again.
“Precisely.”
“Well that’s crazy. Where am I supposed to get that kind of money?”
“Reuben, I know who you are. And I know who Betty is. A million dollars shouldn’t be that much of a problem. Michael Keyes probably has that much in the form of loose change under his sofa cushions. And if he doesn’t, we’ll see how quickly he can auction off one of those lovely boats or rail coaches.”
Reuben stared at me, disbelievingly.
“This is extortion,” he said.
Such an ugly word. I couldn’t help but have a pang of guilt — a slight one — but it passed.
“I hardly think so. Ix…Mr. Ahmad told me about the test you were subjected to in being initiated into the Society. I’m not satisfied that it was adequate. I need an additional show of good faith.”
“So you’re saying this is some kind of deposit or something? You’ll give the money back?”
“Absolutely not. I will do with the money as I see fit.”
Reuben shook his head. I could sense his growing sense of frustration. He decided to play the only card he had.
“So what does Ahmad think of this test of good faith?’
I shrugged.
“I’m not terribly interested in what he thinks. He can think whatever he likes. I hope you aren’t toying with the idea of running off and having a whinge with him about your mistreatment at my hands. Remember what I told you. There’s the chain, and then there’s me. He’ll be happy to go along with whatever I say. No questions asked.”
This was rather a gross exaggeration, I’m afraid. Of course, Iskandar would ultimately go along with anything I said. What choice did he have? But he wouldn’t be happy about it, and it certainly wouldn’t be the promised “no questions asked” scenario.
The man could be awfully straight laced at times.
Dear, dear Ix. It occurred to me that I still loved him, even after all these years.
“And that’s what you want from me. No questions asked.”
“Yes.”
“A million dollars, and I’m not supposed to ask any questions.”
I bit my lower lip and studied him for a moment.
“Well. We aren’t quite as idealistic as we like to make out, now, are we? At first it’s all this talk about how you would do anything, anything to help your friend. Quite sweet and touching, really. But when it comes down to brass tacks…that’s different. Suddenly it’s a matter of price. Isn’t it?”
I picked up the wadded paper and threw it back at him.
“No one else is going to be able to help you, Reuben. Only we can. Only I can.”
Reuben held the paper for a moment, deciding whether to throw it back at me. His hands were trembling — ever so subtly, but then I have a good eye for that sort of thing. Trembling with rage. He despised me, in part (I think) because he recognized the truth of what I had said. He really had been hung up on the price. And indeed, there was no place else he could turn for help. He began to unwad the paper. He smoothed it out as best he could, then folded it and put it in his pocket.
“All right,” he said, looking up at me. He kept his voice steady. “I’ll see what I can do. Miss Wong.”
“Good,” I said. “You may go now, Reuben. I’ll see you tomorrow at six. And be assured that I will have checked my account balance.”
He stood up and started for the door.
“Ah, Miss Wong?” he said, turning back to face me.
“What is it?”
He rubbed that damaged spot on his head. I couldn’t help but feel a moment’s concern about his condition. He didn’t look entirely well, the poor man.
“A million in a day is kind of a tall order. Do you think we can make it Thursday?”
I smiled my most agreeable smile.
“Why, of course, Reuben. Of course. Thursday it is.”
He turned back around and left.
I sighed contentedly. It was a nice feeling, doing him a good turn.
…
I, Altheus, servant of Jaloor of (undecipherable), do here set forth the text of the Small Book in the Latin tongue, that it may be studied and understood by those who in (several words undecipherable) wisdom of my master and his people. Who writes these words is but a servant and student of the wise stranger. I am in all ways unfit to carry out this task, but there is no other. Jaloor the Wise will not deign to cast his thoughts in the tongues of this world; to do so would be an irreverence. All the tongues of man are such, even the Latin tongue, (though it, as the greatest of the tongues of earth, is also closest to the common tongue of my master’s home) that they are unworthy vessels of the great truths known to my master, old wineskins that would surely rupture were they to be filled with the New Wine of higher knowledge. Better that I, as impudent eavesdropper on a heavenly chorus, should dare to mimic the songs of angels on a warped and decaying wooden flute than compound my crime by imploring one of the celestial singers to do the same.
The courses of the heavens are (three lines undecipherable) we who breathe upon the Earth before these mysteries. And so do I, Altheus, add my own small warning to those terrible words with which this book begins. The disciple therefore who will in humility read that he may know, and know that he may grow wise, and grow wise that he may grow in goodness, shall thus prosper and transmute the baseness of ignorance to the gold of right knowledge and piety. But to the reader of the other kind — the thief, the glutton, the wanton, the one who seeks to own and hoard, the bloodthirsty, the slothful, the treacherous, the irreverent, the blasphemer — to him I say only, beware.
I, who have seen the glory of the sunlit day in a kingdom of peace and serenity that surpasses all human desire, who have drunk from the sweet springs of that land, eaten of its richness, and fallen to my knees like a drunken man at the sight of the glory and splendor of its starlit sky — I, Altheus of Milan, have seen also the dark place, have heard the cries of anguish, have seen despair and agony wash across the land as though a dam on some vile river of obscenity had burst, rendering of all a waste and a horror. These things have I seen, and I know the fate of one who would twist that which has been given for (several words undecipherable). And so I, Altheus, do say, to the one who would read from the Small Book, the book of mysteries — look deep and know your own heart.
Thus begins, with turgid prose, a not-so-thinly veiled threat, and — let’s be thankful — quite a few lines lost to the ravages of time, the Magnum Opus of our order.
The Big Book of Cosmic Secrets.
Or to be accurate, perhaps we should make that the little book.
How to Win Friends, Influence People, and Basically Just Bloody Well Run Amok with the Entire Space-Time Continuum.
The Book of Magic Minor.
Not, mind you, that there really is any continuum of space and time. A continuum we may have — though it's probably more accurate, and would certainly be more in keeping with our long-winded friend Altheus’ linguistic milieu, to speak in terms of continua, plural — but both space and time are less real than the edge of the flat earth that mariners used to fear sailing over, less real even than the dragons and other intimidating beasts these same sailors believed were waiting for them over the edge.
Now, if you will only indulge my lingering over the tangential, however briefly. It has always struck me that those sea serpents were manifestly superfluous: if one goes sailing off the edge of the earth, it seems to me that the fall should pretty well do the job.
Should it not?
How much more dead will one be if a dragon decides to make a Christmas Lunch of one’s shattered remains?
Wasn't life short enough for the ancient mariner, what with water, water being everywhere, but not a drop to drink? The albatross and the Sea Hag, signs and portents of every kind, scurvy, unsafe working conditions, no medical or disability insurance, no real job benefits of any kind that we would recognize — and yes, granted, the fear that your captain might, quite unintentionally, stray from his course and send you and your other sailor chums plummeting off the face of the earth — weren’t these sufficient inducements to dread?
Did they have to compound it all with mythical dragons?
Sadly, one can engage in this kind of thinking only before digging deeply into Jaloor’s little book, when one still thinks it makes sense to reject the idea of sea serpents lying in wait off the edge of the flat earth on the grounds of their manifest superfluity, or on even the seemingly more rational grounds that they are a lot of mythical nonsense. Reading the book changes that perspective.
It is only when one has read the book, let it sink in a bit, and perhaps even tried mastering a few of the techniques described therein, that one understands. And what one comes to understand is this: as needlessly intimidating, as superfluous, and as utterly mythical as those dragons may have looked before, they are real.
They are as real as anything ever has been or ever will be. Time and space, meanwhile (along with any “continuum” thereof), deservedly ensconced as the serious stock in trade of serious scientists, not to mention the very bedrock of non-chemical-induced reality are — prepare yourself — not only superfluous, not only mythical, they are outright fantasies. They are among the very few things about which one can say, with confidence, "there's no such thing."
But, you might well object to the previous (seemingly absurd) statement, what difference does that make? If you have, as I do, a smattering of scientific knowledge, you might point out that these concepts are only convenient mathematical abstractions anyway. So it’s no great loss to say they don’t exist. Moreover, if you have something of a philosophical bent, and are pre-disposed to Eastern modes of thought, you might be cheerfully predisposed to questioning the existence of everything. In which case, you might object to the dragons’ being permitted continued existence, while approving wholeheartedly that the application filed on behalf of time and space has been denied.
But let’s leave theory behind and look at the matter from a wholly practical point of view. It isn't as though we were doing anything with time and space, anyway. I for one have never done much with them. Oh, I mean to say — of course —I use them like everyone else. I take up space: more than I should, according to my always-concerned mother. I look at my watch. I live by the clock. I observe time marching on and healing all wounds and even flying on those all-too-rare occasions when I get to have a little fun.
In any case, it makes no difference whether I believe in time and space or have any use for them. My feelings towards time and space don’t matter, any more than the illusions of the sun rising and setting matter, any more than it matters that the earth appears to be flat.
The sun doesn't, the earth isn't, and time and space do not exist.
But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself..
I am writing this introduction to my special English Edition of the Book of Magic Minor with an audience of one in mind.
You know who you are.
If you're reading this, it means that you and I have probably already met, and I have probably already told you to your face a good portion of the background information you are about to read. Which means, foremost, that I really must have had my nerve — going on about how superfluous those dragons were, when it would appear that superfluity is my own personal stock in trade.
But there are reasons why I need to put all of this to paper, the most significant of these drawing from my repeated use of the word “probably,” above. I believe I'm going to meet you, and I believe I'm going to tell you all this, but I don't really know. It isn’t as though I can see the future.
Which is, when you come to think of it, a tremendously unfair situation.
Unfair, I say — because although time may not exist, the future does. It is every bit as real as the present and the past.
I realize how preposterous that sounds.
Here’s how it’s supposed to work: the present is supposed to be the really real point on the timeline; the past is much less real because it's already over. But it really was real at some point, and so we give it partial credit. The future, on the other hand, is supposed to be the really unreal part of time. It hasn't happened yet, and maybe never will.
Now this does pre-suppose a Free Will model of how the universe operates. If you're the retro type, and you favor more of a Predestination model, then you might be perfectly cozy-comfy viewing the past and the future as equally real. But even if they’re each as real as the other, they still wouldn’t quite measure up to the present. It’s the one piece of time that is somehow "switched on" or "lit up" or something.
The Predestination view is the closer of the two to reality. The past and present are equally real. But the business about the present being more real because it’s lit up is wrong. It isn’t really lit up, we just think it is. As far as the central tenet of Predestination — the notion that all outcomes are foreordained, and that we really have no choice about anything — I have no answers. Maybe it’s true; maybe not.
In any case, although I plan to meet you, I don’t have any real knowledge as to how or when or whether that will take place. If I don’t ever meet you, I don’t have a back-up plan for how this document gets to you.
But I’m sure I’ll think of something.
So without further ado, some background:
This book, along with the book of the Greater Magic, was carried into our context by the aforementioned Jaloor in the early 14th century.
Jaloor showed up in northern Italy apparently having come from nowhere. He was oddly dressed and spoke a language that no one could understand. Fortunately, he had a substantial amount of gold on his person which he was able to parlay into a comfortable lifestyle.
We know nothing about where Jaloor came from, why he came here, or why he never went back. Speculation about his context is interesting but pointless. What is important for us to note is that our secret knowledge came to us from a different context. That doesn’t mean that we never would have come up with it ourselves, or that no one here ever has. But if they have, they’ve managed to keep the secret as well as we have. It also raises questions as to how widely known and practiced Magic Minor is out in the wider configuration space. Based on my personal observations, it isn’t practiced any too widely. Of course, I don’t claim to have observed anything like a representative sample of the total set of contexts within the waveform.
Altheus was a scholar, a member of an order devoted to the study of Alchemy. He spent a lot of time with Jaloor. He was the first person who was able to communicate with him. As is clear from Altheus’ prologue, he learned Jaloor’s language. Jaloor could never be bothered to learn any of our languages.
Jaloor was probably insane. At any rate, he thought the big book was as valid as the little book. There is some speculation that he was the author of both, or perhaps of just the big one. It’s more likely that he just copied the documents, or carried existing copies with him.
Altheus translated both books into Latin. And he founded two mystical orders to preserve and protect the secrets of each. It’s unclear whether he really bought into the major/minor dichotomy. We know that he could practice Magic Minor, but it is believed by many that he took his inability to practice the Greater Magic as a personal failing, and not a problem with the discipline itself. Or he might have recognized the big book as drivel from the outset. This is of no particular importance, except that it raises the question of whether the Society of the Greater Magic was always a sham organization subordinate to our own, or whether it gained that status over time as it became increasingly clear where the true power lay.
Jaloor’s original documents have been preserved by their respective orders. The Society of the Greater Magic operates under slightly different rules from ours concerning making copies of the sacred documents. We have in our possession only three documents: Jaloor’s original, Altheus’ translation into Latin, and now my translation into English.
The Society of the Greater Magic has operated in relative secrecy for more than 600 years. It has been a modestly influential group, with a few of its ideas working their way into mystical and esoteric movements around the world. Its membership has included a few names of note: mostly writers, artists, musicians.
The so-called Voynich Manuscript is a bootleg copy of the big book produced by a renegade member of the Society in the 17th century.
Our order, the Society of Magic Minor, has meanwhile operated in something approaching absolute secrecy. Our charter is primarily one of protecting the secret of Magic Minor and making sure that it is never used.
Clarification: our charter is to make sure that Magic Minor is used only under the proper circumstances. But since we’ve never had a perfectly clear idea as to what those circumstances might be, our de facto position has been as stated in the previous list item.
However, some circumstances have arisen which require investigation, if not outright involvement, on the part of our order.
Our Society is currently understaffed. We have two dozen members, and only three practitioners. Of the three, one is 87 years old and has cancer. Another is currently in hospital, being treated for severe psychotic episodes. And the third does not possess the skills required to master the entire craft. We need someone who can travel from one context to another. That’s where you come in.
Daphne’s notes ended there. The final note was handwritten, and had obviously been added just for Reuben’s sake.
He set the book down on the bed. While he knew that he was not the man Daphne was writing to — with the exception of that final note — it was hard to shake the sense that this was all aimed at him. Not just the words in the notebook — all of it: everything.
He stood up and stretched. His body ached with exhaustion. He wondered how much of the book he would be able to wade through before falling asleep. It was now more than 24 hours since his meeting with Daphne. He had spent a little of that time since then working on the financial arrangements, and the rest of it sleeping.
Maybe it was jet lag. Maybe it was some kind of hangover from the experience he had had. Anyway, he had slept, and was only now beginning to read the book that Daphne had given him.
He walked over to the window and drew back the curtain. The lights of the city were garish. Kuala Lumpur was not what he expected. Not that he had really had any specific expectations. But he never would have anticipated the skyscrapers or the new cars dashing along the wide elevated highways.
It was certainly a far cry from Moscow.
Reuben remembered the night he saw the fireworks. There was a straight line through time and space — or through whatever the hell, he corrected, thinking of what he had just read — that led from his standing before that window in a different city and a different world and his standing before this one now.
He thought of Betty and the old man. Not the couple he had left behind in Italy, but the originals. What did they make of his disappearance? Did Betty blame her husband for it? Did Sergei assume that it was the handiwork of Kolkhi?
He thought of Ksenia. What had his disappearance meant to her? Just another tragedy, a single line entry in a lifetime catalog of woes.
It’s a pity, she had said.
He had probably made a mistake allowing himself to get involved with her. Or maybe the mistake had been not getting involved sooner, and leaving her so quickly. What was he running away from? She was beautiful. She had strength and courage. He enjoyed being with her: she made him laugh. And they had shared passion and tenderness in their one night together. That one amazing night. There was something sharp and painful in its memory. No, not in the memory itself. In the realization that he had run away so quickly and deliberately afterwards.
Would he ever make it back to her? Hard to say.
Would she be waiting for him if he did? Probably.
Did he deserve that? No way.
If he did make it back, it would probably be years from now.
Or maybe Betty, this world’s Betty, was right. Maybe there was no need for him to try to go back. It was funny. The Betty he had left behind didn’t want him to leave. The one he had met here didn’t want him to return to where he had come from. Leaving would be hard on her, and on the old man. But then, at least he had been able to —
A knock at the door interrupted his reverie. Reuben opened the door slightly. It was a stranger, an older man, wearing a black suit and holding a very secure-looking briefcase.
“Mr. Stone,” the man said. It wasn’t a question.
“The name’s Kirkpatrick. Michael Keyes sent me.”
Reuben opened the door the rest of the way. The man entered and made his way over to the table. He set the case down and, after entering what appeared to be an elaborate combination, flipped the top open.
“Bearer bonds,” he said, removing the documents from the Kirkpatrick. “Thirteen of them. Fifty thousand dollars each.”
Reuben took the documents and leafed through them. He hadn’t seen them since he locked them away in a safe deposit box in a bank on Grand Cayman some ten years before. He wasn’t surprised to learn that the old man had recovered them upon his death, but he was surprised that he hadn’t liquidated them.
For some reason, all of Reuben’s assets had been carefully preserved. It was almost as though Michael Keyes had expected Reuben’s return. But that wasn’t it, not really.
He had simply been at a loss as to what to do with his godson’s money.
“This appears to be in order, Mr. Kirkpatrick. Thanks for your prompt delivery.”
Kirkpatrick nodded.
“The balance has been wired to the Swiss account per your request.”
He handed Reuben a slip of paper.
“Here are instructions for how to reprogram the briefcase combination. Are you planning on putting it in the hotel safe?”
Reuben thought about this.
“Well, I wasn’t. Not really.”
Kirkpatrick nodded.
“Good,” he said. “It’s probably better that you don’t. It’s safe with you.”
“I see. So I take it that you’ll be around?”
Kirkpatrick nodded again.
“Myself and several others. Until you’ve handed the money off.”
Reuben sighed.
“Mr. Kirkpatrick, I really don’t think I need any protection.”
Kirkpatrick seemed to think about this for a moment.
“Mr. Keyes thinks differently, sir.”
“All right,” Reuben said resignedly. He pocketed the instructions. “Thanks again.”
Kirkpatrick left.
Reuben sat back down on the bed, the documents still in hand. It occurred to him that, although the money was (in a sense) his, he had finally taken a million dollars from the old man.
Sergei would be fascinated.
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