Morgan reached the elevator door just in time to see the hoist-cable snap taut, vibrating and humming like a huge bass string inside a gigantic grand piano.  An instant later it burst and slapped the sides of the shaft with all the force of a massive steel whip.  This was followed by a screeching, grating sound, and then a terrible crash.  Then everything fell eerily silent.

Plunging through the choking dust, he peered down into the darkness of the shaft.  The elevator car, still creaking and trembling with the force of its fall, was wedged tightly up against the wall, stuck between floors about two yards below his feet.  In the beam of the flashlight he could just make out a small trap door in the roof of the compartment.  From within the car came the muffled sounds of Baxter’s cries and the incessant tattoo of his frenetic pounding on the walls.  Morgan slumped against the doorframe and groaned.

Part of him wanted to walk away and leave Baxter Knowles to his fate—to turn back and resume his examination of the mysterious door down the hall.  The Knowleses deserve everything they get, he heard himself say.

But another part of him knew that he couldn’t do that.  That part of him realized that, sweet as it might be, he didn’t really want to drink the cup of revenge.  Not when he thought about his mom.  And Rev. Alcuin.  Besides, Baxter had fished him out of that hole in the street.  One good turn deserves another.

“There’s only one thing for it,” he said to himself.  “I’m going to have to climb down that broken cable, open that trap door, and pull him out.”

For a minute or two he hesitated.  He thought about running back to town for help.  Then again, he reflected, there was no telling how long that elevator car would stay put.  He didn’t like to think about what might happen if it shook loose and went crashing to the floor below.

His mind made up, he tightened the straps of his backpack and slipped the sword, still wrapped in its flannel shroud, through his belt.  Then he reached out, grabbed the cable and began to climb down hand over hand.

The elevator car shuddered and moaned the instant his foot touched it.    He held his breath and waited.  A minute passed.  Then, still gripping the cable, he eased down slowly with all his weight.  The car rattled and shook and slipped another foot or two down the shaft.

“Baxter!  Listen!” he yelled, his pulse pounding in his ears like a drum.  “I’m going to try to get you out of there!”

No answer.

“There’s a trap door above your head!  Can you see it?”

Again there was no response.  Apparently Baxter could hear nothing but his own screams.

Stooping to examine the roof of the compartment, Morgan saw a thick metal ring, about five inches in diameter, bolted to the top of the trap door.  Slipping his fingers through the ring, he tugged at it tentatively.  It didn’t budge.  He pulled again, only harder.  One corner of the hatch gave way.  Fifty years of rust, thought Morgan.  But third time’s the charm.

Tightening his grip on the cable, he yanked at the ring once more, this time with all his might.  Without warning, the trap door burst open and flew off in his hand.  The elevator car rattled loudly and slid a couple more inches down the wall, squealing like a thousand fingernails on a giant chalkboard.  Then the unimaginable happened.

As the cover broke free, a flood of light exploded from the hatchway.  Not just a beam of light or a shaft of light, nor yet a square column of light.  No—this was an entirely different kind of light, a light he had never seen or experienced before.  It streamed out of the trap door in clinging fibers and strands.  It welled up in stifling billows and suffocating clouds.  It had mass and weight and force.  It ruffled his hair and clothes like a hot wind.  It shoved him from side to side as it flowed over his head and body.  And even as it engulfed him, he seemed to hear, echoing in the back of his mind, the words Eny had used to describe the shining corridor through which she had descended into the Otherworld—dust-devils of luminosity.

Through the open hole he could see the blanched and howling face of Baxter, phosphorescent, glowing, his hair a flame, his mouth a boiling chasm, his eyes two white-hot suns.  Morgan let go of the cable and dropped through the hatchway, grappling the other boy as he hit the floor.  Leaning close to Baxter’s ear, he tried to shout, Hang on to me!  We’ll climb out!  But when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.  He could see Baxter screaming, but couldn’t hear anything except the fizz and hum of the swirling lightstrands.

Then the floor gave way and they fell …

(To be continued …)

The rotting steps groaned beneath his weight.  In three or four places the wooden treads had crumbled away altogether, leaving huge gaps through which an unwary climber might easily go crashing to the floor below.  Slowly, cautiously, always keeping the flashlight trained upon the step just in front of him, he ascended step by step until he arrived at the second floor.

Here he found a hallway lined with doors.  Lowering the beam of his flashlight to the floor he found that he was walking on a dirty mass of tangled fibers and cords—the remains of what once must have been a plush carpet.  Black curls of mildewed wallpaper dangled from the walls.  Above his head and all down the length of the hall hung a series of small crystal chandeliers, thick with dust and spiders’ webs.  The doors on either hand were dark with mold, and wherever he swung his light he heard the frantic skittering of insect feet—a sound like the patter of raindrops on dry newspaper.

Without the slightest idea of what he was seeking, he proceeded down the corridor, step by slow step, keeping an eye out for bare nails and loose flooring, closely examining the deteriorating lath-and-plaster walls, hesitantly jiggling the handle of each and every door.

Whatever it is that I’m supposed to find, he thought, it must be inside one of these rooms.

This was his working theory and it seemed to make perfect sense.  Unfortunately, it was of no practical use to him since not a single door yielded to the pressure of his hand.  All were either locked or stubbornly stuck shut after more than fifty years of neglect.  Morgan pounded on one or two of them with his fist.  This accomplished nothing except to produce a vast hollow echoing sound within, like the ringing of a huge kettle drum.

In the course of his search, Morgan noticed that every door bore a tarnished brass plate on which was engraved a room number.  He began counting them off as he plodded along.  On the right, 204; on the left, 205; on the right, 206; on the left, 207.

He was nearing the end of the corridor—239, 240, 241—when he came upon a door that had no brass plate.  It should have been room 247, but the number was conspicuously missing.  In the spot where the plate once hung there was nothing but a rectangle of dark paint and a couple of tiny screw holes.  That in itself was noteworthy.  But when Morgan bent down and held the light steady on the door, what he saw almost took his breath away.

Just below the rectangular splotch someone had carved seven letters into the wood.  Seeing them, he nearly dropped his flashlight.  They were as familiar to him as his own initials, and yet he had not expected to find them here:

“This must be it!” he cried, gripping the door handle.  “It has to be!”

But even as he strove to open the door, a metallic clatter arose at the end of the hall.  With a gasp, he leaped up and flashed the beam of his light in that direction.

“Get a load of this!” called a loud, brash voice.

Baxter Knowles again.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?  I think it’s supposed to be an elevator!”

Morgan’s cheeks burned with frustration and anger.  “I thought I told you to go home!” he shouted.

“You can’t get rid of me that easy, Izaak,” grinned Baxter.  He was standing in front of a big painted steel door that stood open at the far end of the corridor.  Behind the door Morgan could see a retractable metal gate.  With another clangorous rattle and shriek, Baxter yanked the door and the gate open, revealing the interior of an antique elevator car.  “See?” he said.

“Of course it’s an elevator,” said Morgan.  “What else would it be?”

“Never saw one like this before.”

“It’s old, that’s all.  Like from about 1910.”

“Well, let’s try it out!”

“Wait a minute!” cried Morgan as the other boy took a step inside.  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you!”

“Why not?” scoffed Baxter, punching several black buttons.  “Are you chicken, Izaak?”

“What’s that got to do with it?  This place has been deserted for more than fifty years?  There’s no way to know—”

Suddenly the elevator shuddered and groaned.  In the beam of his flashlight Morgan saw Baxter jerk to one side and make a desperate grab for the door.

“Baxter!” yelled Morgan, dashing headlong down the hall.  “Get out of there!  Quick!”

And then, with a jolt and a sickening lurch, the car dropped into the shaft.

The ruins of the Lira stood on a small hill overlooking the cave-riddled western shore of the Point, not far from the great black rock of La Piedra.  The hotel had been built on the plan of a three-sided open rectangle.  The main portion, which had contained the lobby and all of the grandest rooms, faced south.  At one time the broad open space in the middle, walled in on either hand by the east and west wings of the building, had enclosed an immaculate lawn traversed by wide gravel walks, brilliant flower gardens, a couple of majestic cypresses, a hedge of holly, and a grand three-tiered fountain.  All that remained now was one old twisted tree and the rubble of the fountain’s cracked granite basins.  The rest of the space had been entirely taken over by sage, beach grass, and low-growing coastal scrub.

Except for portions of the west wing, which had borne the brunt of ocean gales and storms, the outer frame of the building itself was still largely intact.  Like St. Halistan’s church, its exterior walls had been constructed of solid stone.  The woodwork, both inside and out, had suffered terribly at the hands of the ravaging decades.  The few doors still remaining hung in blasted shards from rusty hinges.  The glass in the windows had all been broken out.  Most of the door-frames and window casements had long since rotted away.

As he stared up at it from among the weeds and wild grasses of the one-time courtyard, this shattered and abandoned structure seemed to Morgan the fossilized skeleton of some gigantic Behemoth.  He shivered involuntarily at the sight of its second- and third-story windows, all of them standing open to the invading sea air, blank, frigid, and empty.  They appeared to be gaping down at him like so many hollow eyes.

He was just surveying the east wing, searching for the most likely point of entry, when a rustling among some dead leaves and branches near the main entrance caught his attention.  Gripping the blue bundle tightly under his arm, he took a few hesitant steps towards the porch.  Under its shadow he could see the remains of the surviving half of a double oak door dangling crookedly from the crumbling door-frame.  Within the porch itself all was thick shadow.  Beyond it lay the blackness of the deserted lobby.  Morgan took out his flashlight and directed its beam straight through the front door of the Lira.  No one was there.

This place is kind of creepy, he thought.  He hadn’t expected to find his nerves so badly shaken by the loneliness and quietude of the spot.  What if somebody’s out here? he wondered, sitting down on a piece of the broken fountain.  What if I’m attacked?

It was only natural that these fears should lead to thoughts of the sword Azoth; and not merely thoughts of its sharp blue blade, but of the words he remembered reading in The Life and Times of Paracelsus:

 … some say it possessed the power to deflect the hatred of his enemies.  Others affirm that in the sword’s hollow pommel Paracelsus  kept a miraculous powder …

Morgan looked down at the blue bundle.  If it’s hollow, why is it so hard to open?  Peeling away just enough of the flannel to reveal the hilt, he gripped the golden globe at the end of the handle and tried again to pry it off.  Nothing happened.  He took a firmer hold and twisted for all he was worth.  It wouldn’t budge.

“What’s that you’ve got there?” said a voice from over his shoulder.

Up jumped Morgan, his heart in his throat.  Hastily covering the sword, he whipped around and found himself face to face with Baxter Knowles.

“You!” he cried.  “What are you doing here?”

“I saw you leave school with that big pack on your back,” Baxter answered nonchalantly, turning up the collar of his blue windbreaker.  “Looked to me like you were up to something.  I decided to follow.”

“What for?”

“I figured you might need my help.”

“Your help!  I don’t think so!”

“Look, Izaak, I’ve bailed you out before.  Maybe I can do it again.  Don’t be stupid.”

Morgan eyed him narrowly.  “I’d be stupid to believe anything you say.  You’re just a bully and a liar!  And don’t think I can’t fight back if I have to!”

Baxter backed off, his eyes wide with something akin to genuine awe.  “Listen, I’m not looking for trouble,” he said, staring fixedly at the blue bundle.  “I only meant to—”

“Then get out of here.  Just go home.”

With that, Morgan spun around and walked straight into the old hotel’s east wing.  Not once did he look back until he was switching on his flashlight and ducking under its yawning black doorway.  Then, turning for the briefest moment, he quickly reconnoitered the shadows that lay jumbled together on the weedy quadrangle.  Baxter was nowhere to be seen.

Guess I told him, he thought, carefully stepping over the warped floorboards and pointing his light down the cobwebby hallway to what looked like the lower end of a broad winding staircase.

East wing, second floor.  That’s what the yellow piece of paper in his father’s notebook had said.  Morgan reached the stairs and began to climb …

(To be continued …)

It was Friday afternoon before Morgan could free himself from school, homework, and household chores long enough to make the planned expedition to La Punta Lira.  By the time he crossed Pillar Creek, his steps resounding hollowly on the boards of the old wooden footbridge, the sun was already entangling itself in the pink and orange shreds of sea mist gathering on the horizon.  He’d had a late start.

At the farther end of the bridge he stopped to sniff the air and listen.  The atmosphere was heavy with a salty dampness, and the birds were strangely silent.  Leaving the shoreline trail, he turned to the left and followed a rough dirt path up over a wooded slope.

Maybe I could camp out here all weekend, he thought wryly.  Then I wouldn’t have to be at that stupid dinner with Baxter Knowles tomorrow night.

If anyone had seen him, they might easily have assumed that this was exactly what he had in mind.  His backpack was bulging with stuff he’d thought it necessary to bring along:  a ham sandwich, six tangerines, a bag of raisins, some chocolate chip cookies, a compass, a flashlight, a pair of binoculars, a length of rope, an extra hooded sweatshirt (in case it got really cold), and a handful of essential books.  In addition to all this, he carried under his right arm a long bundle wrapped in dark blue flannel—the Sword of Paracelsus.

At the top of the rise, he paused among the fragrant pines, anxious lest anyone should have observed his movements.  It was of the utmost importance that he preserve the secrecy of this mission.  Looking back in the direction of the town, he scanned the beach and the gravel pathways for signs of pursuit.  There was nothing to be seen.  Muffled shadows lay across the jade waters of Laguna Verde.  Everything was still.

He was just turning to go when a faint sound reached his ear.  Could it have been the echo of a footstep on the bridge?  Morgan wasn’t sure.  Except for the distant crash of the waves on the far side of the Point, all was silent.  He got out his binoculars and swept them across the scene.  There was not another living creature to be seen on the beach below—not a gull on the sand nor a sea lion lounging on the jagged brown rocks of the lagoon.  He returned the binoculars to his backpack and trudged on.

(To be continued …)

Day 271

For some days now Dee and I have been back at work, digging and chipping away in a fresh attempt to escape the misery of this melancholic dungeon.  On the assumption that the wall at the rear of my cell must communicate with the exterior, we’ve begun our new excavation there.  

It’s a tedious business, and I crave conversation to help pass the time.  But my comrade, a mulish, tight-lipped fellow, resists my every attempt to draw him out.  Fortunately, he is painfully aware that we share a common concern, and this works to my advantage. 

“Several years ago I happened to be at an exhibit of alchemistic artifacts in St. Louis,” I said to him this morning, “when I made the discovery of a lifetime.”   

He grunted.  Then I said, “It was a sword.”

Dropping his tool, he looked at me slyly.  “What sword?”

“I think you know,” I responded.  “We’ve spoken of it before.  The exhibitor didn’t realize what he had, but I recognized it immediately.  It was Azoth.  He sold the thing to me for a pittance.” 

“Then thou hast the sword in thy possession?” 

“I did.  But there was one thing about it that always puzzled me.”

“Play not at cat-and-mouse, man.  Speak thy mind plainly.”  

“I was unaware,” I said, watching him out of the corner of my eye, “that Paracelsus had any knowledge of the Enochian script or language.”

“Faugh!  Nor did he!” said Dee.  “He gave that sword to me, and I made those inscriptions myself!  Under angelic inspiration!”

“I thought as much,” said I, calmly going forward with my work …

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Morgan presented the minister with a small sheet of yellow paper.  It was stained and dirty, and had been folded over twice.

“This is the reason I was especially hoping you’d be able to translate that second inscription,” he said, spreading it out on the arm of Rev. Alcuin’s chair.  “See?  It’s got the same strange words written on it.  ZIR DVIV.”

The Reverend scanned the scrap of paper.  “So it does,” he observed.  “But that’s not your dad’s handwriting.  I’d say this was a note he received from somebody else.  Someone in a big hurry.  Why didn’t you show it to me sooner?”

“I didn’t notice it until today.  It was stuck between the pages of the notebook.  There was something sticky or gluey along the edge when I tugged on it.  Otherwise it would have fallen out a long time ago.”

The note, written in an antiquated, backward-sloping hand, read as follows:

               This is the promised clue. 

                You know what to do.

                Lira, east wing, second floor. 

                Keep them separate, mark the door.

“Any idea what that’s about?” Morgan asked when Peter looked up from the page.

“No,” said Rev. Alcuin, thoughtfully stroking the stubble on his chin.  “But I do know what the Lira is.”

Morgan shot him a questioning glance.

“It’s the old ruined hotel out on the Point.  You never heard of it?”

“That pile of rocks has a name?”

“It did.  Back when Santa Piedra was a popular tourist destination.  People came from all over the world to stay at the Lira.  I’ve seen some pictures from the early 1900s.  Pretty impressive.  Grand spiral staircases.  Tiffany lamps and glasswork.  Stone exterior, hand-polished oak interior.  Robert Louis Stevenson is supposed to have spent some time there.  Dickens too.”

“But what could that old place possibly have to do with Enochian inscriptions?  Or Lia Fail?  Or the sword of Paracelsus?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.  But you know what?”

Rev. Alcuin rose.  Still rubbing his chin, he crossed the room to a small Edwardian bureau of dark cherry-wood.  Taking a key from his coat pocket, he unlocked the bureau and opened a drawer.

“That note,” he said, carefully lifting another sheet of paper from the drawer, “—particularly the part about a ‘clue’—reminds me of your father’s last message somehow.  The one he left your mother the night he disappeared.  I assume you know the one I mean?”

“I can recite it by heart,” said Morgan.

“Well, I’ve got a copy right here.  Kept it all these years.  Do you remember—?”

“Yes!” cried Morgan.  “I think I know what you’re going to say!  ‘Against all odds, the clue has actually fallen into my hands!’”

“Exactly.  And that’s not all.”

Stepping to the window and holding the paper up to the light, Peter read:

    “It came to me when I least expected it.  Why, I cannot say; how, I dare not.  This, too, I must confess.  But I will also confess that, having what she wants, I am at last resolved to keep it from her.”      

Morgan’s heart was thumping in his chest.  “That fits in with the bit about keeping something separate!  I think it’s talking about her—the Morrigu!  My dad had something she wanted, and he wasn’t going to let her have it!”

“A logical inference,” said Rev. Alcuin, replacing the paper in the bureau drawer and taking his seat again.  “But we need to be careful about jumping to conclusions.  I suggest we return to this subject after tea.”

But tea was the last thing on Morgan’s mind.  His brain was filled with a dramatic, wide-screen image of the gloomy old Victorian hotel out on Punta Lira.  He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he believed he knew where to look for it.

His pack was on his back and he was halfway to the front door when he stopped, turned, and gave Rev. Alcuin a sheepish look.

“Staying after all?” said Peter.  “Delighted.”

“No,” stammered Morgan.  “But there was just one more thing I wanted to ask you.”

“At your service.”

“Rev. Alcuin,” said Morgan, rubbing his nose, “what would you do if your Mom invited your worst enemy to dinner?”

The Reverend smiled—an indulgent, knowing smile.

“Don’t worry about it, Morgan,” he said.  “I’ll be there with you.  Your mother invited me too.”

Morgan reached into the pack and pulled out the Enochian primer.

Rev. Alcuin took the book from his hand.  Peering over the tops of his spectacles, he began to thumb through it.  “My goodness,” he said, his forehead arching upward.  “Did this belong to your father?”

“It’s one of the books he left behind.”

“So apparently he was familiar with this Enochian script?’

“Yes.  And the sword too!”

The Reverend glanced up at him.

“The Sword of Paracelsus,” breathed Morgan.  “The Sword in the Stone.”  He could feel his pulse pounding in his ears.

“Did you bring the drawing?”

“Right here,” Morgan answered, rummaging in his pack again.

“Let’s have a look, then.”

Peter opened the little book to the alphabetical table and laid it flat on his knee.  Morgan pulled his chair over next to the minister’s and unfolded the picture of the sword.

“I’ve already copied out the inscriptions,” he said.  “See?  I’ve transcribed them into English letters.  But I still don’t know what they mean.”

He pointed to the paper.  Just below the first line of Enochian text—

—ran Morgan’s careful transliteration:

Ubi Soror et Sponsa Sub Scalis Iacobi

“Well!” exclaimed the Reverend straightening up in his chair, a satisfied smile illuminating his rosy countenance.  “Here at last is something I can help you with!  That’s Latin.”

“Latin,” murmured Morgan.  “I knew I’d seen that second word before.  Soror Mystica is Latin.  It means ‘mystical sister.’  That’s a term from alchemy.”  Then, in a softer voice, he added, “I used to say that Eny was my soror mystica.”

Peter looked up at him.  “Sister.  Precisely,” he said, readjusting his glasses on his nose.  “‘Where the sister and spouse is, under the stairs of Jacob,’” he intoned.  “That’s what the inscription means.  Or something to that effect.”

“The stairs of Jacob?” repeated Morgan.

“Jacob’s Ladder,” said Rev. Alcuin with a nod.

“And Jacob’s Pillow Stone!” whispered Morgan.  “The Stone of Destiny!”

For a moment they were both silent and thoughtful.  Then the Reverend said:

“It looks like we were right, Morgan.  There is a link between that sword—or at least the inscription on the sword—and Lia Fail.  But what does it mean?  And would it make any difference if we knew?  Would it help us get the Stone of Destiny back?”

“It would have to help!”  Morgan’s head was spinning with ideas and possibilities.  “The connection must have something to do with the first part of the inscription—the part about the ‘sister and spouse.’   What’s a ‘spouse’ anyway?”

“Don’t you know?  A ‘spouse’ is a married person.  Sponsa is feminine—‘wife’”

Morgan felt himself blushing again.  “What’s that supposed to mean?  I don’t get it.”

“Nor do I.  We need more information.  But it seems to be saying that Lia Fail is a bride or wife.  To somebody or something.  To the sword, maybe?”

“Yes,” muttered Morgan, staring down at the drawing.  “They belong together somehow.”

“Which brings us back to the Sword in the Stone,” observed Peter.

“What about the second inscription?” said Morgan after a pause.  “This one—” and he laid a finger on the seven characters

“Is that Latin too?”

“Z … I … R,” said Peter, pronouncing the individual letters.  “D … V … I … V.  No.  That’s no language I’ve ever seen before.”

Morgan got up, shoved his hands into his pockets, and stared disconsolately into the fire.

Rev. Alcuin sighed.  “I’m sorry, Morgan,” he said, wiping his glasses on his sleeve,” but I’m afraid that’s as far as we can go for now.  Maybe we should shelve the question for the time being and put our heads together some other day.  Meanwhile, I’m famished.  Will you stay for tea and toast?”

“No—no, I can’t stay,” Morgan answered abruptly.  “But there is one more thing I wanted to show you.  I almost forgot!”  With that, he stooped and dipped into his backpack again.  “I found it in my dad’s notebook.  Just this afternoon, while sitting on the bench in gym class.”

Plopping down in his chair, he presented the minister with a small sheet of yellow paper.

(To be continued …)

The Rectory, residence of the Rev. Peter Alcuin, stood a block north of St. Halistan’s on Alta Drive.  It was a small two-bedroom house in half-timbered English Tudor style, with a steeply sloping roof of uneven shingles, a quaint chimney of black and yellow stone, a low six-paned picture window facing the street, and a covered porch built on the pattern of a London Beefeater’s sentry box.  For reasons neither Rev. Alcuin nor anyone could explain, this humble building had been left completely unscathed by the earthquake that leveled the church tower and opened the gaping holes in the pavement on Iglesia Street.

Nothing could have offered a more striking contrast with Rev. Alcuin’s office at the church than the interior of this neat little dwelling.  Morgan had always wondered how both places could possibly belong to the same man.  He wondered again as Peter opened the front door and escorted him into the house on Monday afternoon.

The living room was as immaculate as it was snug and homey.  Everything in it, from the maroon tweed sofa to the mahogany end-tables to the crystal and porcelain ornaments lining the knick-knack shelves, was spotless and shining.  There was a comfortable fire burning on the red brick hearth.  The beveled mirror above the mantel-piece was polished to bright perfection.  Matching glass-covered book cases stood like sentries on either side of the room, and two high-backed easy chairs covered in dark green twill faced one another across the fireplace.  Rev. Alcuin conducted Morgan to one of these seats before occupying the other himself.

“They told me you’d be here,” said Morgan, dropping his backpack between his feet.  “I know Monday is your day off, and I’m really sorry to bother you again.  But I just had to come as soon as school let out.”

Peter rested an elbow on each arm of the chair, put his fingertips together, and smiled.  “Always glad to see you, Morgan.  What’s on your mind today?”

“A couple of things.  Any news about Eny?”

The Reverend’s smile faded.  “I’m afraid not.  I’ve been in constant contact with George and Moira.  They call me almost hourly.  But nothing’s turned up yet.  The police didn’t even issue a Missing Person Report until Saturday afternoon.”

“Why not?”

“Standard procedure.  At least that’s what they said.  But you know George.  He’s like a bulldog when it comes to protecting his little mija.  He won’t give up until he’s got the FBI on the case.”

“And Moira?”

“She’s frantic—as I’m sure you can imagine.  Keeps talking about the black crow and the Morrigu and the Sidhe.”  Peter paused and stared pensively out the window.

“What do you think, Reverend?” asked Morgan.  “Do you suppose she’s right?”

“I don’t know, Morgan,” said Rev. Alcuin, shaking his head sadly.  “All I know is that we’ve got to pray.  And keep on praying.  Pray without ceasing.”

“That’s what my mom says.”

“Yes.”  Peter turned and looked Morgan straight in the eye.  “We’ve seen a lot of strange things around here lately.  I believe in God, so I guess I shouldn’t have any trouble believing in the supernatural.  But I’ll admit that the events of the past few months have thrown me for a loop.  I’m new to this kind of thing.  At this point, my mind is open.”

“In that case,” said Morgan, unzipping his backpack, “you may be interested in hearing the second thing I have to say.”  He paused; then, leaning forward in his chair, he said, “I’ve found something.”

(To be continued …)

Day 248

My new friend is not the most genial of companions.  “Irascible” is the word that comes most readily to mind.  I am sorely tempted to block up the wall again and spare myself the continuing trial of his irksome company.

It’s possible, of course, that I’m judging him too hastily.  His sour disposition may be attributable to nothing more than poor digestion or lack of sleep.

It could also have something to do with the fact that he is, by my reckoning, over four hundred years old.

“Your name is Dee,” I said to him on the third day of our acquaintance.

“Who told it thee?” he grumbled.

“No one,” I answered.  “But I know who discovered—or invented—the Enochian alphabet.  And I know that the fourth letter, which you’ve scrawled there upon the floor, has the same phonetic value as the English “d”.

“Fie upon thee for a wizard!” he spat.

“Yes.  And perhaps upon thee as well.  It’s not hard to guess why you’re here.  Like me, you went too far with your experiments and conjurings.  Your thirst for knowledge betrayed you to the Morrigu.”

He glared at me.  “How is it that thou speak’st of such things?”

“I made the same mistake,” I said.  “She tried to make me tell her what I knew about a Stone.”

“And me,” he said bitterly, “she hath imprisoned for the sake of a Sword.”

“I think I know this sword,” said I.

*  *  *  *  *  *

A mist was gathering when he left St. Halistan’s and stepped out onto the sidewalk.  October had arrived, and the offshore flow was once again driving overnight fogs and damps off the surface of the unsleeping ocean and into the dusky streets of Santa Piedra.  Already Iglesia Street was completely obscured in gray at its seaward end, and an aura of gauzy drizzle danced and shimmered within the glow of the lamp above the church’s double oak doors.

His mind fully occupied with thoughts of John Dee, Edward Kelly, and the first few letters of the Enochian alphabet, Morgan picked his way across the sidewalk to the curb, carefully avoiding the yawning cracks, gaps, and holes that remained from last May’s catastrophe.  Clean-up and repair were well underway, but George said it would be at least a year before things got back to normal around St. Halistan’s.  It could be tricky finding a path through the rubble, and the mist and darkness only made things worse.

Above the converging murk loomed the ruined stump of the tower, its misshapen bulk standing up black against the night sky like a headless stone giant.  Glancing at it over his shoulder, Morgan felt again the heart-thumping panic of his desperate flight from the relentless Fomorian, Falor son of Balor.  This awful memory quickly gave way to others, as images of the battle—that terrible, never-to-be-forgotten night of storm and earthquake—went flitting through his brain in rapid succession.  He shivered as a picture of Simon Brach, hurtling down from a great height through the slanting rain, flashed across his mind’s eye.  That’s when he heard a footstep.

Instantly he spun around.  Except for scattered rocks and debris, the sidewalk was empty.  Who could possibly be out here at this time of night? he wondered.

Tightly gripping his books under his arm, he backed slowly towards the street, narrowly scanning the thickening gloom and the dim shadows playing over the rough surface of the crumbled wall.  Wisps of white mist curled around his head, damping the night sounds and imposing an eerie silence upon the scene.  A puff of wind sent a few dead leaves skittering across the pavement.  From behind him came a tiny noise like the snapping of a dry twig.  He wheeled, banged his knee against a plastic barrier cone, got tangled in a strip of yellow caution-tape—and fell.

When he came to himself, he was lying on his back atop a pile of cold, damp earth and stones with a sharp piece of rock jabbing him painfully between the ribs.  With a groan, he rolled over onto his side, yanked the rock out from under him, and flung it aside.  Then, brushing the hair from his eyes, he raised himself on one elbow and looked up to where a fuzzy circle of light showed faintly above a wall of impenetrable blackness.

So that’s how it is, he thought.  He was at the bottom of a deep pit, and from what he could see, its top margin stood about three or four feet above his head.  Gathering his books, he struggled to his feet, raised himself on tiptoe, and stretched his right hand up towards the ledge.  It lay just beyond his reach.

“Here—take my hand,” said a voice out of the mist.

Morgan started and turned with a jerk.  Someone was looking down at him from above the ledge on the street side of the pit, nodding encouragingly and extending a hand in his direction.  The light of the church lamp shone full on the face of this beckoning individual, and even through the rapidly congealing fog Morgan could see exactly who it was.  Baxter Knowles.

“Come on, Izaak!” coaxed Baxter.  “What are you waiting for?  You want to spend the whole night down there?”

“Um—no,” Morgan stammered, scrambling awkwardly over the slag to the other side of the pit.  “Here—you’ll have to take my books first.”

“Fine.  Got ‘em.  Okay, here’s my hand.  You got it?  All right.  One—two—three—up we go!”

A moment later he was standing on the pavement, brushing sand and pebbles from his jeans and sweatshirt, stealing furtive glances at Baxter’s ruddy face out of the corner of his eye.  “Thanks,” he muttered from behind his hand as he wiped a blob of wet dirt from his nose.

“No problem,” said Baxter, bowing slightly and standing aside to let Morgan pass.  “And remember, one good turn deserves another.”

Morgan stopped and stared into his face.  “I don’t get it,” he said.

“Don’t get what?”  Baxter’s eyes opened wide with astonishment.

“What this is all about.”

“What what is all about?’

“Why are you being nice to me?”

Baxter shrugged.  “I don’t see anything nice about it.  Wouldn’t you have helped me if I was down there?”

“That’s not the point.  You’ve always despised me.  You’ve done everything you could to make my life miserable.  Up till this week.”

“Look, Izaak, that’s all in the past, okay?”

“Not really.  Not for me.  What are you up to anyway?  Why did you stop those guys from picking on me the other day?”

“I’ve changed my ways.  I’ve turned over a new leaf.”

Morgan thought of the dark-haired boy on the football field.  “I don’t believe you,” he said.

Baxter looked hurt.  “That’s an unkind thing to say.  I stood up for you.  Is that a crime?  I scratch your back, you scratch mine.  That’s how I look at it.”

“But why?  You still haven’t told me why.”

“Don’t you know?”  Baxter glanced up at the ruined church tower with a significant nod.  “I’ve seen what you can do, Izaak.  My views have changed.  I want to be on your team now.  Is that such a bad thing?”

Morgan looked away.  “That all depends.”

“Listen, I helped you out.  Maybe you can help me one of these days.  Could you deny that to a friend?”

“No,” murmured Morgan.  “Not to a friend.”

There was a silence as the fog thickened around them.  Morgan was the first to break it.

“It’s late,” he said—“really late.  I gotta go.  Thanks again.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Baxter.  “So see you later, huh?”

“I suppose so.”  Morgan hiked his books up under his arm and walked off across the street towards the duplex.

“At school,” Baxter called after him as he mounted the porch steps.  “And at dinner next week.”

Morgan winced as he reached for the door.

Liber Logaeth

Morgan stared at the strange title, then shifted his eyes to the description of the book’s content that stood immediately below:

Being A Primer of the Enochian or Angelic Abecedary and Tongue

As Revealed to Doctor John Dee and Master Edward Kelly

MDLXXXIV

“Enochian?” he whispered, wondering whether his tired eyes were deceiving him.  “An angelic tongue—an alphabet invented by angels?”  For a moment he could do nothing but stand there, his body tottering back and forth under the strain of this new discovery, his mind a cloud of confusion and disbelief.  But in the next instant he was leaping around the room, clapping his hands, whooping for joy and shouting at the top of his lungs.

“I knew it!” he cried, his voice rebounding off the walls and echoing like a trumpet through the empty spaces of the church basement.  “I knew it had to be here somewhere!  This is the key to the power of the sword and the gateway to the Otherworld!  Enochian—” once, twice, three times he mouthed the strange name softly to himself.  It had a pleasing sound that made him smile.  “All I’ve got to do now is learn to read it!”

He dived in at once, eagerly leafing through the pages in search of a list of the Enochian letters and their English equivalents.  He hadn’t been at it long when his attention was arrested by a striking full-page illustration in black-and-white.  Remarkably similar in style to the picture of Paracelsus and his sword, it depicted two men:  the first, a dour, bearded figure dressed in a black skullcap and a long black robe fitted with wide bell sleeves; the second, a short, thick, sour-faced individual in a short Elizabethan jerkin, wearing a curious piece of headgear that covered his ears and encircled his face down to the chin.  The Famous Alchemists Dee and Kelly, read the caption.

Famous? thought Morgan.  That’s weird.  Never heard of them.  His interest piqued, he licked a finger, turned the page, and began to read:

John Dee and the Enochian Language: 

A Brief Introduction

     John Dee (b. July 13, 1527), consultant to Queen Elizabeth I and one of the most learned men of his age, was widely noted as an expert in mathematics, astronomy, and navigation.  But his real interests lay in the field of alchemy, which he regarded as the gateway to divine power. 

     Dee’s thirst for higher knowledge was insatiable.  While still a youth, he traveled to Poland where he met and conferred with the famous physician and alchemist Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, otherwise known as Paracelsus.  No one knows what passed between the two men at this time.      

     Above all, Dee was obsessed with a desire to communicate with angels.  From them he hoped to learn the secrets of creation and obtain the key to all knowledge.  He said that they had taught him their speech and revealed to him their system of writing.  This language, which he called “Enochian” (on the assumption that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, had been the last man to speak it), forms the subject of this short volume.  The grammar and word lists presented here are based entirely on the nineteen Enochian “Calls” Dee is supposed to have received from angelic beings while sojourning in Poland.              

     It is true that Dee’s friend and collaborator, Edward Kelly—a London scryer of questionable reputation—disputed his story.  Kelly claimed for himself the distinction of having discovered the Enochian alphabet while gazing into a crystal.         

     To this day the facts of the case remain uncertain.  But of this much we can be sure:  Dee and Kelly parted on less than friendly terms.  Kelly died trying to escape from Hnevin Castle after having been imprisoned by the Emperor Maximilian II for his failure to perform a successful alchemistic transmutation.  Dee, meanwhile, returned to his home in Mortlake, England where he spent his final days in obscurity.  We have no record of the date or manner of his death.  No gravestone exists, and none of the parish registers containing his personal information have survived.

On the facing page Morgan found what he was seeking:  a table of the Enochian letters, each with its name, its English equivalent, and a guide to its pronunciation.*  This was an unspeakable treasure.  Gazing at it, he felt every ounce of sleepiness and fatigue melt away from his body as if by magic.  Suddenly his mind grew clear, his eyes bright.  Adrenaline went pumping through his veins like liquid fire.  Filled with energy and enthusiasm, he made up his mind to commit the Enochian letters to memory on the spot.  But then he happened to glance at his watch.  It was past midnight.

“Rats!” said Morgan.  He had school in the morning, and getting up on Mondays was a trial under the best of circumstances.  He’d have to postpone his new studies until tomorrow.  Reluctantly, he picked up his books, turned out the light, and went stumping up the stairs.

(To be continued …)

* You can find a couple of similar tables on the “Sword and Stone” page of this Website.

Morgan slammed the heavy book shut and shoved it back into an empty space on the shelf.  It was Sunday night, eleven o’ clock.  The dungeon was damp and cold, his eyes heavy and burning, his stomach pinched and growling with hunger.  So far his weekend-long search had yielded nothing.

For two days the thought of Eny’s disappearance had weighed heavily on his mind.  Fears and worries for her safety and well-being crushed his spirit and kept him from concentrating on his work.  Unlike George, who had gone to Los Angeles to aid Moira in the search, he didn’t believe that Eny had been the victim of a mere kidnapping or a run-of-the-mill street crime.  Not for a moment.  He thought he knew exactly where she was—in the Otherworld.  He also thought he knew who had taken her.

“All the more reason to get there myself somehow,”he muttered grimly as he turned away from the shelf.

Shuffling back to his dingy little workspace, he gave the leg of the desk an angry kick and threw himself into the creaking swivel-chair.  Of the many obscure antique books he’d set himself to examine over the last two days, only one was left:  one last little book remaining between him and all his dearest hopes and dreams.  Nearly sick with exhaustion and discouragement, he picked it up and held it to the lamp.  It didn’t look promising:  a small, thin volume covered in dull black cloth.  Neither cover nor spine bore title or description of any kind.  He yawned.  Elbow on table and chin in hand, he lazily flipped it open to the title page.

“Hold the phone!” he muttered to himself, sitting up straight in the chair and brushing a strand of hair from his eyes.  Rubbing his aching temples, he got to his feet.  Then he bent down and gazed intently at the little book.  “What in the world do we have here?”

At the top of the page, in bold black ink, stood two words or names written in the same bizarre characters he had found inscribed on the crossguard of the sword:

This was followed by a title in English:

Liber Logaeth

(To be continued …)