The Alchemist’s Code (44 page)

The Guardian of the Threshold pierced me with his malignant eyes, waited a moment, then lifted what must have been an arm and pointed an invisible finger at me.

“You, man, have opened the seven seals which return me to my eternal prison. I recognise you as the Elect of the Nine. Before I depart, and if your will is strong enough to dominate me, I will execute your command – one and only one.”

I had just time to think of Àrt, and allow her love to give me strength and flood my entire soul, then I closed my eyes for a moment, re-opening them almost immediately. I was serene.

The Guardian of the Threshold turned back into a bird and flew away into the cold, dark night.

I followed his black shadow with eyes full of tears until he had disappeared from view.

Events reconstructed from the statements taken by the police

Piazza San Pietro, January, 2013 – 20:30

The Pope, his eyes closed, awaited the bullet that would put an end to his life. For a few seconds, everybody held their breath: the snipers on Bernini's colonnade, the people at the sides of the square, and the millions of viewers at home. All saw the pontiff clasp his hands and raise his face to the sky.

And then, just when everything seemed totally, irretrievably lost, it was from heaven that a miracle came.

Hundreds of eyewitnesses who were standing at the edge of the square and whose accounts coincided with those of the people involved in the incidents in St. John Lateran and Porta Maggiore, witnessed the arrival of a large black bird – a raven, most of them said – which flew at incredible speed along Via della Conciliazione, arriving in the square and striking the three men who had taken the Pope hostage, killing them on the spot. Some swore they saw the hooded man open his arms, as though to welcome the strange bird, before collapsing to the ground like a lifeless puppet. When the bird flew away again, witnesses saw Pope James still on his knees in prayer.

Safe.

Moments later, the lights came on and the people in the auditorium, free at last, poured out into the square outside.

The Swiss guards and the police immediately rushed to the Pope to protect him, but Pope Sinclair chose to stay with the crowd to share the joy of liberation and the certainty that God had not abandoned them.

With tears in his eyes, and visibly overwhelmed by the applause, the Pope looked around him until he spotted Father Palminteri in the crowd. Their eyes met, and Palminteri smiled, happy that his pope was all right. James returned his smile and nodded, just as he had done before leaving the Nervi Auditorium. Both were convinced that their faith in the Lord had worked the greatest of miracles.

But deep in his heart, Palminteri suspected that the bird had not been sent by God at all, but was rather the result of that mysterious Chaldean science that his order had helped to preserve.

But what neither knew was that the raven had come out of nowhere to save their lives because, a few miles away from the Vatican, one man had sacrificed the dearest thing he had in the world.

From the diary of Lorenzo Aragona

Zurich, two weeks later

I seemed to feel once again upon my shoulders the strong hands of the pope who, upon learning what had happened, had asked to meet all those involved in the search for the Baphomet. He had asked us for details of the events which had shaken Rome and which would remain indelibly in the memory of billions of people. The history books would speak of what took place, and many, from that day forward, would cheer on Holy Pope James, since it seemed certain that the black bird was not just a raven, but a messenger sent by God and evoked by the Pope's prayers.

I had spoken to the Pope for about half an hour, together with Oscar, Commissioner Volta and Luigi Palminteri. Anna was supposed to have been there too, but, typically, she had vanished immediately after seeing the Guardian of the Threshold return to Piazza Vittorio and disappear through the Alchemic Door.

We told the Pope everything we had seen and he listened attentively and without scepticism. His gaze often alighted upon me, even though I was not talking, and at a certain point he asked the others to leave us alone for a few minutes.

Once they had gone, he asked me, in his gentle way, what it had been, apart from intellectual curiosity, that had set me upon the trail of Baphomet. I had, until then, been silent about the real reason behind that desperate search which had led me to make so many terrible mistakes.

“Holy Father, when you're about to lose someone you love, you'd do anything to save them. When I learned that the Guardian of the Threshold could fulfil any wish, I thought I might be able to save the life of my wife, who is dying of cancer in a clinic in Zurich. I know, it was foolish—”

The serenity in his eyes was joined by a gleam of admiration, and his hands unexpectedly took hold of mine.

“No, my son – your love sought a solution. But thanks to that same love, instead of saving the life of your wife, you saved mine and that of the faithful who were imprisoned in the Nervi. You, not I, should be made saint, my son.”

I shook my head and smiled. “I don't think there's ever been a saint who was a mason—”

“Do not judge me as though I were some medieval pope, Lorenzo,” the Pope chided me good-naturedly. “You know very well that I work side by side with the heirs of the Templars. I have an open mind.”

After a moment of silence, he got to his feet and I rose with him. He embraced me, and I felt at peace at that moment, as though I were enveloped by warm rays of sunshine on a cold day. He looked into my eyes.

“Pray, Lorenzo. Pray a lot, just as I will pray for you. Pray, and God will hear, and if what happens is not that which you desire, then continue to pray that He will make you understand a small part of His plan, so as to give you the peace of mind you deserve.”

And here I was now, with Àrtemis, in that spotless room in a Zurich clinic. I held her hands and stroked her face occasionally. My sweet Greek girl was very weak, but my return had put the smile back on her face.

As soon as I'd sat down beside her upon my return from Rome, she had caressed my cheeks, now covered with a thick beard, and my unkempt hair.

“You look good, sweetheart. You look like an artist,” she commented with a smile, and then asked me a question which took me by surprise.

“So, did you act in a way that would make us both feel proud?”

Tears filled my eyes and, still gazing into hers, I nodded.

“Then it's all right. Nothing else matters. I want to rest for a bit now. Do you mind?”

She closed her eyes, and when I was sure she was asleep, I went outside into the open air. It was freezing cold and the clinic was surrounded by snow, but, oblivious to the temperature, I sat on a bench in a driveway not far from the entrance.

After a few moments, while I sat there, chewing over thoughts tinged with the blackness of my suffering, I saw a figure emerge from the clinic and take the same path which had led me to the bench where I was now sitting.

When she was a little more than fifty metres away, I recognized her. It was one of the nurses who worked in the ward where Àrtemis was staying. She had a heavy coat on over her uniform and seemed to be walking towards me.

My legs trembling, I stood up, undecided whether to run straight into the clinic or just to wait and hear from her mouth the terrible news.

Instead, she handed me a folded piece of paper.

“Mr Aragona, a fax has just arrived for you. It said 'urgent' so I thought I'd better bring it out to you.

“My wife—” I mumbled, taking the sheet of paper from her hands.

“She is resting in her room,” the nurse assured me before returning to the clinic.

I unfolded the fax and read the short message. There was first of all a phone number and then a name: Brad Höffnunger, Woland University, and below, a couple of sentences.

Reconstruction based on a secret dossier provided by Benjamin Grazer

Berlin, the night between 24 and March 25, 1945

The young Spanish seminarian, still clinging, trembling, to one of the pillars of the synagogue as though in search of a solid foothold in that night of horror, was slowly starting to breathe normally again. The squad of traitorous soldiers had left behind them a trail of corpses that now surrounded him like a macabre daisy chain. But despite this and despite his terror, he was still grateful to God for saving his life.

As he tried to work out why he was still alive, one of the bodies lying on the ground a few feet from him began to move. The boy jumped, and backed off towards the wall of the synagogue, and the soldier gave a faint cry.

Seeing that the man was still alive, the boy plucked up his courage, moved closer and knelt beside him. The head of the soldier was lying in a pool of blood which was coming from his right ear. The man opened and closed his eyes a few times, then, looking at the figure before him, asked, “M-Matthias, is that you?”

“No,
Herr Kommandant,
” replied the young man in surprise, “my name is Caesar Valentin Vorjas.”

The soldier closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again with a grimace of pain and surprise. “Vorjas… Are you Spanish? What are you doing in this hellhole?”

At that moment the boy understood why God had spared him. He pulled out a clean bandage and put it to the right side of the soldier's face to stop the bleeding.

“I'm here to help you,
Herr Kommandant
.”

The soldier gritted his teeth as the bandage touched the fresh wound, then, looking at the young man, smiled.

“Then I thank you, Caesar Valentin Vorjas. You can call me Henri.”

 

 

 

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This is a fantasy novel and should be considered as such, and anything herein which seems too improbable must be seen in this light.

Nevertheless, there are references in the novel to characters, historical events and places that actually exist or have existed, which in some cases I have adjusted. Names known from or present in other works (like the name Woland, taken from Bulgakov's masterpiece The Master and Margarita) are deliberate homages.

Below is a short list of the real elements in the book and some explanations.

The Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, better known as the Knights Templar, really existed, of course, and in the early years of its establishment actually did take possession of a portion of what is now known as Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the site once occupied by the Temple of Solomon. It is said that the Templars carried out excavation works in the bowels of the Temple Mount. What they found remains unknown, but hypotheses abound.

Villa Gondemar, which in the book is the modern Templars' Roman home, is my invention (as is the Villa delle Chimere, Woland's operational base in Rome, but inspired by the House with Chimaeras built by Vladislav Gorodetsky in Kiev in 1903). The name Gondemar was one of the first nine Templars.

The Thule Society, of which the novel's antagonists are members, was an esoteric association which really existed and which, in a sense, created the mythical apparatus of Nazism. Members including Rudolf Hess and Alfred Rosenberg went on to occupy key positions in the Third Reich. Among their activities was that of attempting to establish telepathic contact with higher entities.