The Gods Look Down (10 page)

Daneri became frustrated by this lack of understanding and eventually felt that he had to raise the subject, even at the risk of incurring the Master Adept's displeasure and suspicion. But Dagon ben Shem Tov was surprisingly tolerant and hope sprang up in Daneri that he was regarded as having served his period of apprenticeship and was now accepted as one worthy of Dagon ben Shem Tov's confidence. The answers, however, when they came at last, puzzled him even more.

‘The Ark comes from the future,' said Dagon ben Shem Tov. ‘It does not belong to that era two thousand years ago and neither is it of our time.'

Daneri recalled Meria's words and said, ‘Is it from a place beyond time?'

‘That description will serve, though it is not completely accurate.' Dagon ben Shem Tov studied him for a moment. He seemed to be debating something and it was as though he had come to a decision. ‘The Ark was once regarded by the ancient peoples as an instrument of the Lord, sent down from Heaven to serve and protect them. In fact its exact purpose is obscure even to this day … that's to say I have not, so far, discovered what it was.'

‘Or where it came from?'

‘That too is a mystery, though I know it came from the future.'

‘Who sent it?'

‘I hope to find out.'

‘Then you don't know?'

Dagon ben Shem Tov smiled slowly and said, ‘Ask the question uppermost in your mind and I will answer it.'

‘You seem to know what it is already.'

‘You fail to understand how I can know of these events of long ago without a written record, without evidence. Isn't that it?'

Daneri watched and waited, saying nothing.

‘You already know of the existence of the Aleph and now you want to know everything.' Dagon ben Shem Tov's large dark eyes were lazy and amused. ‘Meria couldn't resist the temptation of telling you about it and offering proof of its existence, and ever since you've been tormented by curiosity, by the urgent desire to learn the secret.'

‘I wish to learn,' Daneri said earnestly. ‘I want to become as knowledgeable as you are.'

‘Pay close attention.' A draught was rattling the door. He leaned back in his chair and pulled his cloak around his legs. ‘What I am about to tell you must never be divulged to another living soul. You understand that?'

Daneri nodded solemnly, aware that his heartbeat had quickened.

Dagon ben Shem Tov began, ‘In one form or another I have lived throughout all the ages of mankind. This particular shell you see before you is a temporary accommodation that has changed and will change again. I have lived in the remote past and I shall live again in the far future. The events which make up the
Qabalah
I can recall from my own ancestry: it is a form of cumulative memory which has grown over the centuries. Thus I do not need scraps of parchment to tell me what happened long ago because it's all here, contained within my head. By meditating I can conjure up the past and then it's simply a matter of setting it down – a mundane and rather laborious task, I grant you.

‘Now there are certain events of the era we're dealing with which are ambivalent; that's to say we don't know precisely which course they took, and in the case of some of them if they followed a particular course at all. The history of those times can be written a number of different ways and it is up to me to decide how it shall be written.' Daneri was about to interrupt and Dagon ben Shem Tov said, ‘Let me continue. We know, for example, that the tribes were expecting the arrival of a Saviour: for hundreds of years their prophets foretold His
coming – but did that Saviour ever appear on earth? There were many prophets, from the time of Kish onwards, who prepared the way but whether their prophecies came to pass is still a matter of conjecture. Do you see – the history of those times has never been accurately or truly set down and this is the work on which we are engaged.

‘So we must ask ourselves what actually did take place? Are the events frozen in time, waiting to be discovered – or are they in a plasmic state, shifting, nebulous, unsettled?' Dagon ben Shem Tov smiled at his own inner vision. ‘We can, if we wish, alter those events and guide them in new directions … and do you know how this can be achieved? Can you guess?'

‘The Aleph?'

‘
Yes!
' said Dagon ben Shem Tov. ‘The Aleph exists outside of time. It is not bound by the forces which sway ordinary mortals and their petty lives. The history of that era is yet to be written – do you understand? –
it is yet to be decided
. I have the power, Daneri, to influence those events, to decide what shall be and not be. But you must believe, you must have absolute faith in the power of the Aleph to change the past. It can be done, it is possible, but you must believe.'

‘I – I want to believe,' Daneri said. He was in anguish. ‘But I lack understanding. I cannot see how these things are possible. The past is fixed – how can we alter something which is dead and gone, no longer existing?' He was looking at the Master Adept with a mixture of uncertainty and trepidation.

‘Is it proof that you require?' said the other softly. He lightly touched the heavy ring which adorned the index finger of his right hand. ‘Do you need to witness a demonstration?'

‘I've seen the gold,' the young man said hastily, not wishing to offend. ‘Meria told me that the Aleph had the power of transmutation and I've seen the result for myself.'

Dagon ben Shem Tov fluttered his pale hands. ‘What is gold? I take a lump of lead, alter its inner structure and I have a bar of gold. All things have the self-same constituent parts; tampering with the structure of matter is child's play, a jester's trick. But tampering with the past, with the structure of time – that is a trick worthy of the gods!'

Daneri leaned across the table which was littered with manuscripts. He said in a breath, ‘You have succeeded in this?'

‘I have made progress but there have been some unfortunate setbacks …' His dark eyes became hard and unyielding. ‘Did Meria also tell you about Angel?'

‘She said that the Aleph was the cause of his deformity.'

‘It was the cause of him. Angel is the result of an experiment which didn't succeed. He was to have been the archetype of a new species.'

‘You created him?'

‘The Aleph created him. As I have said, all things are made up of the same constituent parts, and just as I can produce gold from base metal so it is possible to alter the structure of living tissue. The problem is not how to do it but how to succeed in creating the perfect specimen. Angel was the first abortive attempt; he is the result of an error of metabolism which can be corrected.'

‘What is the purpose of this new species – the archetype you speak of?'

‘To propagate the earth,' Dagon ben Shem Tov said with a gentle smile. ‘What else?' He seemed quietly amused at the naivety of the young initiate. ‘Have I not said that the history of ancient times is yet to be written? Do you still not understand? The first book of the
Qabalah
is complete, the second will be finished soon, in four or five years, and it's in the third book that the Saviour will emerge to lead his people. Isn't all this clear to you?'

‘But a moment ago you said that we don't know for sure whether a Saviour appeared on earth as foretold by the prophets.'

‘Therefore,' said Dagon ben Shem Tov with a wave of his hand, ‘I shall create one. I will create him in my own likeness and he will rise up and claim the Ark of God for himself and his followers. Do you doubt any of this?'

‘I doubt nothing that you say,' Daneri replied with total conviction. ‘If you said you could walk on water I would believe it.'

‘Such cheap theatricals are for religious fanatics suffering from delusions of grandeur,' Dagon ben Shem Tov said dismissively. ‘However, you would not be human if you didn't require proof of some kind, a demonstration of the art of metaphysics.' He raised his right hand and doubled it into a fist so that the heavy bronze ring, representing the sign of the
Qabalah
,
was pointing upwards: the dull rich gleam of the metal formed a cluster of reflections on the moulded plaster ceiling. The young man was transfixed.

The Master Adept stared at the ring and with each passing moment his eyes were becoming heavier and heavier until they were almost closed. He was entering into a state of self-induced trance, not unlike the calm which precedes the onset of an epileptic fit. His lips moved soundlessly and then he mumbled something which Daneri strained to catch. His face was very pale, like a death-mask, and again his lips moved and this time Daneri heard him say quietly yet distinctly, ‘The seventh shelf. It appears on the seventh shelf …'

The young man saw it at once: on the seventh shelf of the cedarwood book-case behind Dagon ben Shem Tov's chair: a small glowing sphere, the radiance coming from within, floating clear of the shelf as though held suspended by some mysterious force. It was of no earthly colour – none that Daneri could put a name to – and yet shone with an intense luminescence that seemed to draw the eye inwards, ever deeper into the depths as if pulled irresistibly towards the true and perfect centre of all things.

‘You do see it,' said the Master Adept, his eyes now open, expressionless. ‘You see the Aleph before you: the one sustaining source of energy and life in the universe. Now do you believe?'

‘Yes,' said Daneri, quietly and with great respect. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced. If it was a trick it was one that would be worthy of the greatest magician of all time. But this wasn't a trick, he knew absolutely; the presence of the Aleph was enough to sweep all doubt aside.

‘Watch closely,' said the Master Adept, and as he obeyed Daneri saw the inner brilliance fade away to be replaced by dense and utter blackness, as if a hole had been made in the fabric of reality. It was deep and fathomless and in it he saw a multitude of visions, a million disparate entities as though space and time had been drawn together to meet at a certain point, the absolute cosmic centre. He saw visions of the present and the past and the future: all the ages of mankind contained in the tiny sphere which floated above the seventh shelf.

‘Now you see and now you understand,' said Dagon ben Shem Tov.

‘I understand and I believe. Everything is as you said it would be.'

‘And do you see how the Aleph, existing outside of time, has the power to change the past? The events of long ago are not dead, not frozen in eternity; they are waiting to be written. We shall write them, you and I, we shall—'

He rose swiftly to his feet, his eyes wide and vivid, as the tall crooked man with the misshapen head entered the room and came for him. An enormous hand reached out and grasped Dagpn ben Shem Tov around the throat, the thumb and curved fingers encircling his neck in a death grip and raising him bodily off the floor. Daneri, unable to move, watched as the deformed giant tightened his hold and the head of the Master Adept filled up with blood, his face darkening and his empty open mouth gaping soundlessly. In a sudden flurry of panic Daneri leapt out of his chair and struck Angel repeatedly on the half-raised ‘wing' which protuded from his back; it was like a child scolding a kitten; with his other hand Angel swung round and hit him once so that he went spinning and took the chair with him and ended up tangled with it in a corner.

The Master Adept's eyes were cracking under the pressure. The whites were turning crimson, and Daneri, still shaken, the room spinning, saw him raise his right fist and press it gently into Angel's left shoulder, just below the collarbone; though he couldn't comprehend what happened next for the man loosened his grip as if branded with a hot iron and uttered a mangled cry of pain. There was the smell of seared flesh – sweetly cloying to the nostrils – and the man with the deformed wing fell to his knees, weeping and trying to comfort himself.

Daneri said (was about to say), ‘How …?' but Dagon ben Shem Tov shook his head wearily, his left hand massaging the marks on his throat. His right hand, Daneri noticed, was spread out on the table, the ring which adorned it glowing molten white as if it had that instant been cast in the mould.

Dagon swivelled his head so that the light sensing arrays glittered like diamond chips. He sucked air through the respiratory implant and said, ‘I wanted answers to my questions and instead we're faced with a new set of riddles. The purpose of the machine is as obscure as ever.'

Milton Blake was by nature a calm man, not given to emotional outbursts, but there were certain things which roused him to anger, callous behaviour and ingratitude being near the top of the list; now he was on the verge of losing his temper and he might have done so if Queghan hadn't remarked, with a placidity that was quite amazing, ‘Perhaps we know more than we suspect. The tapes are open to many levels of interpretation – so far we've taken them at face value.'

‘Do they reveal the purpose of the machine?' Dagon asked coldly.

‘Not that I can see.'

‘Do you know its purpose?'

‘No.'

‘Then no progress has been made. Complete waste of time.'

Blake kept his voice low and steady, under tight control. ‘You talk as though none of this information meant anything. Do you believe that? Do you think it's worthless?'

They were in one of the PSYCON soundproof labs with an audio-visual display linked to the VTR facility: for the third consecutive time they had watched and listened and made notes on the tapes produced during Queghan's period of transmission. The quality of reception was excellent, though Dr Francis Dagon had remained resolutely unimpressed, and Blake was annoyed because he knew that Dagon didn't regard the experiment as genuine or scientifically valid. He had more or less admitted this in commenting that mythographers were
blessed with unusually vivid imaginations, to which Queghan had smiled charmingly and thanked him for the compliment.