The Infinite Library (67 page)

I couldn't help but to input the respective roles of Castellemare and Setzer, where Setzer as the artificer would most obviously be the representative stand-in for Simonides, a repeating drama between those who would preserve authenticity and those who would seek to multiply texts as sabotage. I could also picture, with some amused satisfaction, Castellemare throwing his trademark fits over people who refused to give back books.

“Simonides trafficked in icons and impostures, but he was masterful at it. From Odessa to Athos, St Petersburg to London, he duped even the shrewdest minds with his clever forgeries. But it was not just his skill that helped him along, but the books he stole from the Library. Half of what is attributed – falsely – as forgery are actually books that emerged from the Library.”

“One wonders why they have not been recollected back into the Library,” I said carelessly.

“It was too late – they became part of public record, the damage was done, may as well leave them be. They became part of
this world's
history, and so to pluck them would be superfluous. Besides, Simonides took a risk in what he did and he lost: he was denounced as a forger so the books remain safe.”

“Have you encountered anyone beside Castellemare who may have had contact with the
Ars
text?”

“Indeed I have, but their credibility is a matter of dispute... We are speaking mostly of those melodramatic medievalists, or hobby medievalists with a good chunk of money and no scholastic merit, who torture the air with their talk of conspiracies and mysteries. But one such gentleman, while I was researching in Prague, had told me that Raymond Lull himself had referenced the book twice in his works.”

“Was this corroborated?”

“Not at all!” Dr Warburg sniffed. “The first reference was to a manuscript written by Pseudo-Lull, a reference to be found on page 216. There was no page 216 since the manuscript only had 215 pages.”

“Perhaps it was on the flyleaf or the colophon?”

“I checked, even with UV light – nothing.”

“And the second book?”

“Either it was never catalogued, lost, or simply never existed at all. I did, however, have some luck from an unexpected place. I was studying a work reputed to be in the hand of John Dee, circa 1586, and followed a ciphertext section that, with some rearrangement, could have led to another key.”

“Oh?”

“Dee was an admirer of Trithemius' cryptography, and would on occasion try his hand at double enciphering – that is, to conceal a text in cipher, and conceal a deeper meaning beyond the surface cipher.”

“Were you able to crack it?”

“With ease; Dee's ciphering abilities may have been superior for his time, but history and patient scholarship eventually reveals all the magician's tricks. He does, in fact, reference an Edw. - i.e., 'Edward' in relation to the
Ars atrocitatis
.”

“Edward Kelley, Dee's assistant?”

“That was what I assumed, as a reflex, but it didn't seem to accord with what Dee was trying to achieve with this particular double-cipher. There would have been no reason to bury Kelley's name, stitched to the
Ars
, since Kelley had no connection to the purported contents.”

“Which are?” I asked, not concealing my own mounting excitement.

“This is where the matter gets muddy, I'm afraid. I've heard some go as ridiculously far as to say it is the end of days. Such religious zeal among millenarians is tiresome, and each of their predictions has turned out wrong and is once again deferred to some future date. Another report says it is the result of some variety of synthesis between seven magi, and another stating it is the synthesis of the most representative of the seven lands. The synthesis connection is by far the most prevalent, but as to
what
or
who
enters into synthesis, and
what
the outcome of it is remains shrouded between the covers of a book we have no access to.”

“But Castellemare presented you with a copy.”

“On loan, and not for very long. The copy I was lent was quite battered and missing several leaves, some of them seemingly torn out in haste. I was lucky to squeeze out two intelligible lines at a time, the rest of it quite faded, or soiled, missing, or blacked out. It also didn't help that the printers used a very thin ink.”

“Do you have a copy of what you saw? A transcription?”

“I used to, but as soon as I gave back the copy to Castellemare, my transcription went missing. I assume given Castellemare's secrecy that he had plucked them, leaving me only with the notes which I used to write my study and signal attention to this peculiar manuscript.”

“Would you happen to have a few of your notes that I could glance at?” I asked hopefully.

“Somewhere, but I'll need some time to retrieve them,” he said, waving his hand over the hopeless avalanche of notes and papers. “You have to understand that it has been a very long time since I reopened that case after it went so tragically cold.”

“I understand. Could you give me any physical details of the edition Castellemare leant you? It might be of some service to me if I can, upon a wing and a prayer, locate a copy of my own.”

“You would be in luck. I just happen to have a card file – I know, anachronistic of me, but old library-style habits die hard. Let me check.”

Dr Warburg shifted his bulk to a the old file card catalogue, flipped the yellowed cards until he found what he was looking for, and then he closed the drawer.

“Found it,” he said, handing it to me for inspection.

Ars Atrocitatis – Anonymous

In English, on paper; publication date: 1315; 6 1/4' x 4 ½', vi+ 185 leaves, no illuminations or capitals. Severely damaged, obv. attempt at rebinding. See notes.

“So if the edition is not from 1315, although it might have some of the original leaves rebound into it, what year do you place it?” I asked.

“That's a mighty difficulty, I'm afraid. Upon examination of the typography, I could date it to around the late 1500s, although the method of printing was archaic. The colophon boasts that it was done by chalcography – brass punches. Such a Venetian method was mildly popular in the late 1400s but long since discontinued. As well, even if there are original 1315 leaves in the book, they are written in English. All texts of that time were written in Latin. If that were not enough to drive a researcher mad, the title page was also written in English, but not according to older spelling. Look at the back of the card.”

Curious title page: Ars atrocitatis, This being the 7
^th
and Final Volume of the Dies Irae Cycle, Full and Unexpurgated From Its Original Printing. Including a Preface by Fr. Ioannes Obercit. Published in London. Anno MCCCXV.

“The 'Dies Irae Cycle'?”

“Day of Wrath, judgement. None of it adds up.”

“What is this about a preface?”

“There was a preface, but it was not in the hand of this Fr. Ioannes Obercit. Obercit was a 17
^th
century friar obsessed with clocks, and no previous reference is extant. The preface in the copy I had was written by that same agonizing 'Edw.'”

“But we know it was published in London.”

“Actually, the colophon states that it was printed in Ambianis – i.e., Amiens.”

“Given all these inconsistencies, it seems to me that the book that was leant you was a very sloppy forgery.”

“You perhaps know as well as I do that in his Library, there are no forgeries. And it is proper parlance in our trade, when the authenticity of a book cannot be confirmed, to give it the probationary description of being a copy. In addition, I do recall the final page of the text, a rather ominous finale. Not much of the actual book was readable given its poor condition, but these phrases were: '
cave ab homine unius libri
' and '
cetera desunt
'.”

“Beware those with only one book.”

“And 'the rest is missing'. Perhaps this was meant to deepen and broaden the mystery, or perhaps to throw non-initiates off the scent of the secret.”

“Do you suspect that it was written by and for some kind of secret order?”

“There were not enough references to any collective in what I was able to read, no mystic symbols, or any of the other glyphs so cherished by a secret society. I do think it was meant to be consumed by the few, but not necessarily those who were part of the same fraternal order. The title page is written as if the book were meant for public sale, and makes no mention of whom the book is meant for. There were no astrological diagrams, no recognizable enigmatic phrases in currency among alchemists, and certainly no discussion of the ways to conduct sacred rites. I would like to think this book was for some order, and that it was some devotional arcana of secrets, but the evidence did not bear that out. Of course, much of it was in such poor condition that I could not read it, and so I cannot say any of this with any certainty.”

“The title page mentions that it is the seventh and final in the series. Have you any idea what the other six are?”

“I mentioned already, and this is a dim guess,
Codex Infinitum, Codex Machina,
and
Spiritus Designata
, but I would hazard to guess that there were several associate texts that acted as apocryphal spinoffs. I would postulate the existence of nine or more other books that make up the cycle, but it would be hard to determine without the original which were genuinely part of it.”

“I have encountered mention of this
Codex Infinitum
,” I ventured.

“As have I. At last tally, there were fourteen variations.”

“Fourteen? Have you encountered one of them?”

“No, this is by mention in other manuscripts dating between 1355 and 1662. Most of them reference it with a helpful annotation, but all of them are widely different in what this book contains. Sadly, the references are scant, even in their synopsis, so I could not tell you what the book – or books – is about. It may have turned out that the title,
Codex Infinitum
, was a popular one used to name many different books.”

“I would like to obtain a copy of your study on the
Ars
. I know you directed me to the library holdings, but I was hoping to obtain a copy direct from you.”

At this, Dr Warburg seemed to go grey. It was a perturbing request.

“I like to think of myself as very accommodating to the needs of research, but generally only where the research will result in a fruitful end. If there is any caution I can give, and one that enthusiasm has a tendency to deafen, it is this: you ought to concentrate your efforts elsewhere. If I learned anything in my feverish obsession with that book, it was that it is akin to struggling in quicksand.”

“Let me assume the burden of responsibility for what I choose to research. I have a personal investment in this project, and I am asking you for assistance.”

“Really, it is a work of juvenilia, filled with hasty speculations and roughshod analysis. You really shouldn't trouble yourself with it.”

“Dr Warburg, I am not interested in your intellectual modesty. I am asking you, as one touched by the mystery of Castellemare's Library to another, to lend me a copy of your study on the
Ars atrocitatis
. It would be of immense help in my own work as I have a few other pieces of the puzzle that were perhaps not in your possession when you committed your study.”