Enigmatic Pilot (16 page)

“What else did he do?” Lloyd asked, thinking back to St. Ives’s story of Junius Rutherford.

“He grasped the most complex relationships between numbers, music, and the stars. He looked deep into the idiosyncrasies of other creatures, the chemistry of healing, and the nature of disease. Most important, his thought embraced the relationship of language to life and the shape of the mind. He was a geometer, dreamer, and diviner—a maker of medicines and occult machines. One legend says he could even raise and animate the dead.”

“That sounds like an awful lot for one man to know,” Lloyd said, whistling.

“Yes!” agreed Mother Tongue. “That was his most insightful idea of all. The necessity of camouflage to survive. The need to
appear to be many men instead of one, and the need to
become
many men—and women, too—in order to make his ideas live.”

“How do you know that he was just one man?”

Mother Tongue stroked the cat. The coon dog never moved.

“The same has been asked of many,” she answered. “There is a view that all the great figures of inspiration—Socrates, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Zoroaster—do not represent individual historical figures but, rather, are code names for composite characters uniting the thoughts and visions of many people. There is no way to prove or disprove the actual life of Spiro now, for he chose always to hide in the shadows, and so his reputation and his achievements have been relegated to the shadows of history. But upon this skeleton of shadows most of what we know of as the modern world has developed.

“He traveled widely—to Rome and the deserts of Arabia. Jerusalem, Baghdad, Alexandria, and deep into Europe—India and China, too. His knowledge he passed on to carefully chosen pupils who were sworn to secrecy. Magicians, physicians, alchemists, philosophers, architects, engineers, and artists. To each of them he gave a piece of the master puzzle, one fragment of what he called the Great Enigma.”

“Why?”

“So no one individual or even generation ended up knowing the master goal—they only knew the pieces they had been entrusted with and the implications that flowed from them. This protected the Great Enigma, for if one person or school failed, for whatever reason, to pass on or build on their knowledge, there was always the hope that others would survive and continue the work.”

“What happened to him?” Lloyd asked, leaning forward. “When did he die?”

“In one sense, he never did,” Mother Tongue replied. “Because we are talking about him now and still coming to terms with his thought and deeds. But in the sense you mean, what happened to the one man is lost in the puzzle that he created.
What happened to the many men and women that he became—that is much better known. Because, you see, it was inevitable that the pieces of the puzzle would seek each other out and try to form the Whole.”

“How do you mean?” Lloyd asked, and was surprised when the ancient woman gestured toward the wall of the cabin behind her. He could have sworn that the wall was bare before, but now it showed a map of the world that seemed to glow and swirl like the marvelous lights that had illuminated the crusted boat upon his arrival.

Mother Tongue cleared her throat, as if savoring the taste of her phlegm.

“From the sands of Egypt to what is now Italy and France, Holland, Germany, and the forests of Northern Europe, England and Ireland, all the way to the Orient, the lineage of the students of Spiro’s teachings coalesced to form a confederacy with the grand design of unifying magic, religion, and science to lead mankind to the fulfillment of the destiny he foresaw. Many of the greatest minds and prime movers of Western culture were later Spiro’s followers, bound to secrecy by the oath of the Order. Paracelsus, Nicholas of Cusa, Raleigh, Bacon, Van Leeuwenhoek, Pascal, Lavoisier—and countless others who remain unknown. The names and contributions are so entangled in history that it is impossible to separate the individuals and the strands. Cosmographers and mapmakers joined the Order. Noblemen and divines. Caliphs and rajas. The Spirosians infiltrated the Catholic Church, the Jewish merchant-finance networks, and the cabalistic enclaves—even the dynasties of distant China. They directed emperors and later formed the major craft guilds. They sponsored secret expeditions of discovery.

“Through oblique channels, it was Spiro’s thought that lit the fire that fueled the Renaissance and allowed the birth of science, and later inspired the Spirosians to take key steps that led to both the French and American revolutions. From the
Great Pyramids to Trafalgar Square, Mecca to Monticello, his influence has been felt. But secrecy and subterfuge was of necessity always the rule. From the first fog-enshrouded moment of inception, the leaders followed Spiro’s practice of concealment and distraction, creating or sponsoring most of all the major secret societies that have ever been heard of, in order to cloak their own investigations and innovations. Many you might not have heard of yet. The Assassins, Knights Templar, Freemasons, Rosicrucians, and the Illuminati—all these had members who believed in the reality of their confederacies without ever knowing the true nature of their origins.”

“But why?” Lloyd queried, glancing again at the sleeping dog.

“To confuse enemies by creating figureheads and decoys,” the ancient answered. “The attraction and fear of cabals is so ingrained in human society, the Spirosians always sought to use this stratagem as the primary defense and principal tool of direction—misdirection. Spiro taught that it is through the study and practice of illusion that we learn the art and science of the truth, and this philosophy has proved immensely effective. Yet it was always a point of vulnerability, and through this point a splinter was driven that changed the history of the movement and, indeed, the world.”

“A splinter?” Lloyd asked. The curious map was now gone from the wall.

“A schism developed. Another sect or school of thought took shape and broke away. They called themselves the Vardogers, a Scandinavian term for a ‘psychic double,’ but their true name is the Order of the Claws & Candle, which comes from the practice of canny northern priests of old, who attached candles to the backs of crabs, releasing them in graveyards to simulate the spirits of the dead to impress the credulous.

“They believed that mastering the Great Enigma was a task they alone could be trusted with. They retreated so far into their own secrecy that their ingenuity began to fester. They
grew to love the interplay of hidden forces and came to believe that the masses must be manipulated like the figures in a vast marionette opera. They turned their composite mind to engines and methods of war and domination, strange new vessels of transport and division—and ever more ingenious techniques for influencing the will. Those of us alive today are just beginning to see how far back in time this labyrinthine campaign began to be waged.”

“Wait a minute,” Lloyd grunted, leaning back in the rocker. “From what you say—if you are to be believed—the Spirosians have been busybodying themselves all over for a very long time. What makes your view right?”

Mother Tongue’s green eyes gleamed.

“It is true that the movement has always sought to steer the secret course of world events—the dissemination of ideas and the prosperity that ensues. But the difference between the progress of humanity at large and the enrichment of a clandestine élite at the expense of whole peoples is as profound as they come.”

“But hasn’t the movement always been clandestine—and élite?”

“Yes!” snapped the old woman, and heaved the cat to the floor. “The means have been similar in some respects, but the end is entirely different! The candle of the Vardogers’ knowledge is very bright, but the crab of their might has very long claws. They are not averse to intimidation, betrayal, and murder. And now the key battlefield is here!”

“In St. Louis?” Lloyd squawked.

“In America—which has long been the jewel of contention in the holy war of dreams and ideas, yes! This nation was founded on just such conflict. But this area in particular has now become a cauldron. It is a focal point for the ravenous plans for expansion and development—the struggle over land and railroads, the erosion of the Indian’s ways—and for the spread of the hideous practice of slavery. You are well aware of
the slave pens scattered throughout the city that are operated by the auctioneering companies. There is one on Olive Street, and another on Fifth Street that specializes in the sale of children. Children, Lloyd. Younger than you! Your own family walks a razor’s edge.”

The hairless cat leaped back into Mother Tongue’s lap. The coon dog never flinched. Lloyd set the pine ladder-back rocking like a clock pendulum.

“If this time and place is so important, then why is a woman in charge?”

Mother Tongue’s eyes flamed and then she smiled again, wrinkling every cleft and furrow in the pudding of her face.

“Spoken like a true little boy. The simple answer is that we are losing the war, Lloyd. I hold the position of authority that I do now out of desperation. We have recently lost a valuable colleague in the South, who was supposedly teaching slaves how to read the Bible. For that, he was ostracized. When it was discovered that he was really teaching them mathematics, he was hanged. Our leadership is embattled, our fund of knowledge is in tatters. The lights you saw—we know how to turn them on and off, but the man who was beginning to understand their secrets is dead. Others throughout the world who might understand them we dare not approach, because they are under close enemy surveillance or we are in doubt about their affiliation.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Lloyd said, yawning. “But my family sleeps in a smelly stable. And I still don’t understand what this all has to do with me.”

“My boy”—Mother Tongue smiled, her bright green eyes flaring—“the great mission of the Spirosians has been subverted. Our work has been sabotaged and our membership has been preyed upon. Operatives in Europe and abroad have been deposed. Others have defected—won over by greed or fear. Or delusion. We know that deadly new weapons are being made in Germany—and right here in America, in Connecticut and Rhode Island, Mobile and Charleston. Meanwhile, marauders,
slave speculators, and any number of professional rascals and rabble-rousers are pouring into Missouri daily. There is trouble brewing in Kansas and Texas. Impending war with Mexico. And still the monster of slavery grows. Our abolitionist agents are all under threat—those that have avoided outright assassination. One day soon, I will be gone. Wolfgang, too. The rest, scattered through the nation and overseas, will go the same way. We need new blood, Lloyd. We want you to join us—to become ordained. We want you to leave your family and the path you are pursuing to be given tuition in ways of thought worthy of your emerging genius. Your friend the showman talks of ‘marvels.’ I am offering you the chance to change America and the world!”

For an instant there was a mad glitter in the old woman’s green eyes that did scare Lloyd, but the words blurted out of his mouth anyway.

“You want me to … leave … my family?” As much as he had sometimes dreamed of this, it was something he could never do.

The cat uncoiled in the old woman’s lap and began to bathe itself with its tongue. The dog dozed on indifferently on the sofa.

“I know that in your heart you are still very young, Lloyd, even though you take much responsibility for earning the family money.” The old woman sighed, regaining her composure and evenness of tone. “Your loyalty is admirable. It takes desperate times and dark challenges to make the dissolution of yet another family acceptable. Believe me, I do not make the proposition lightly. But there are such things as casualties of war.”

“I’m not at war with anyone,” Lloyd responded, and then paused. “Unless, of course, you won’t let me go.”

“You will go back to your family tonight with my blessing, child—and under the best protection that I can provide. Wolfgang tells me you have plans to go to Texas, to meet your uncle. A very risky undertaking. Well, we can provide that money now,
for your parents to depart—in as much style and safety as can be arranged. Or if they wish, but I do not advise this, they can remain here in St. Louis under guard. This, I believe, is much less safe. But we need your help, Lloyd.”

“My help?” he yelped. “I thought you were going to help
me
!”

“And so we will! We will help each other. For years we have been awaiting someone of true vision—a mind as bright as that of the first Enigmatist. We believe you are that person, Lloyd. Wolfgang has recounted to me your feats and abilities. With the education that we can provide you, who knows what you can achieve?”

“You would give me books … and instruments? Tools?” He thought back to the drafty barn in Zanesville—his yearning for resources worthy of his ambitions.

“And time, Lloyd. Everything you need. A personal key to a library the superior of any you will find in America. You will be given access to the notes and private papers of those of genius from the past. Letters of introduction, and arranged meetings with those living luminaries whom we can trust. You will be tutored in physics, mechanics, optics, acoustics, ballistics, magnetism, electricity, mathematics, chemistry, medicine—whatever you chose.”

The boy’s eyes brightened at this prospect, and then his face sagged.

“But my family needs me.”

“A bigger family needs you,” Mother Tongue retorted. “And you know in your heart you need the opportunities we can offer. I can see that you are starving, Lloyd. Not just for beefsteak and fresh vegetables, but for knowledge. For power.”

“But I can’t leave my parents. Not now!” he moaned. “If we can get to Texas, everything will be all right. I know it. We almost have enough money. Just a little more work. Just—”

“A few more days or weeks working as a talking monkey on a medicine-show wagon?”

“I do a lot more than that!”

“Indeed you do. As the showman knows too well. Are you remunerated in proportion?”

“He’s my friend!” Lloyd wailed, turning to see if he had woken the dog.

“I say again, your loyalty is admirable,” the elegant crone rejoined. “It gives us all confidence in our belief in you. But what of the other matter—your experience with women? Tell me, have you met any suitable females since arriving in St. Louis?”