The Matrix (21 page)

I sat alone for a long time, trying to regain my composure. My nerves were in shreds, and even though I downed three or four glasses of whisky in a row, I could not calm myself. It may sound trivial to write of it, but to be embraced so materially by what was less than air had filled me with a sense of loathing as though, making love to a beautiful young woman, I had opened my eyes to find myself bedded with a bare corpse.

Since I could not now rid myself of that hateful book, I decided to look at it more closely and to see if I could determine why it had been forced on me and why its presence seemed to bring such horrors in its wake. I got up and took the copy from my pocket.

I could see straight away that it possessed two titles. The first,
Kalibool Kolood
, meant ‘The Matrix of Eternal Life’. The second title,
Resaalatool Shams ilaal Helaal
, meant ‘The Epistle of the Sun to the New Moon’.

I reread the short prologue by the English translator, Nicholas Ockley, but nothing in it shed any light on my dilemma. Ockley did not, in fact, seem to know much about either the book or its author beyond their evil reputation, and, as I read his translation, it gradually became apparent to me that he had worked, not from the original Arabic, but from the Latin, and that the Latin itself was by no means always faithful to the original.

Confused by these misreadings and the uncertainty they provoked in me, I determined to try my hand at the original. I still had my dictionaries and grammars, and I thought I could make good progress with what help the translations might provide.

I discovered two things straight away: the author’s identity and the period when he had lived. Both the Latinizer and Ockley called him ‘Avimetus’, but in the exordium to the Arabic version the author had written out his name in full, together with that of his father, as was the custom: ‘
wa min ba‘d. Hakadha yaqul al-‘abd al fani . . .
To begin: thus says this evanescent servant, Abu Ahmad ‘Abd Allah ibn Sulayman al-Fasi al-Maghribi . . .’ Abu Ahmad ‘Abd Allah, the son of Solomon, the man from Fez, the Moroccan . . .

I set the book down. A horrid truth had started to dawn. Of course, I could very well have guessed the first part of his name from the Latin form: Avimetus would have come from the old spelling, Aboo Ahmet, thus Avoo Ahmetus, thus Avimetus. But the rest would have meant nothing even had I read them that first time. Now, however . . .

I leafed to the back of the
Fara’id
, the dictionary of classical Arabic I had used while in Morocco. During my sessions with Sheikh Ahmad, I had sometimes jotted down notes on the blank pages at the back. In the course of one lesson, he had explained to me something of his lineage. I had written the details down dutifully, without giving them real attention. Now, I looked more closely.

He was, he had said, born Ahmad, the son of ‘Abd Allah. That meant that his father would have been called Abu Ahmad ‘Abd Allah – ‘the father of Ahmad, ‘Abd Allah’. I looked at my notes again. Ahmad’s grandfather had been called Sulayman, his great-grandfather ‘Abd al-Rasul, and his great-great-grandfather ‘Umar.

I picked up the
Matrix
again and leafed through the first few pages. There on the third page was what I was looking for: ‘I learned these things from my father, who learned them in turn from his father Sulayman; and Sulayman had them from his father ‘Abd al-Rasul, who had them from his father ‘Umar.’

It did not seem possible that this, a book whose English translation had been published in 1598, could have been written by the father of a man I had spoken to only a few months earlier. But Duncan Mylne’s voice echoed repeatedly through my head:
In the account he left of their meeting
,
he wrote that the sheikh was already an old man then.

But when had the author of the
Matrix
himself lived? I turned at once to the colophon, a brief passage at the end of a text where the author would give brief details of the date when he had completed his task or the scribe the day he ended the labour of transcription. I was not disappointed. Sheikh Abu Ahmad had followed convention to the letter:

‘Completed by the hand of this wretched servant in the imperial city of Fez on the fifth day of Rabi‘ al-Awwal 585, in the reign of the just and benevolent Caliph, Lord of Spain and Morocco, Sultan Ya‘qub ibn Yusuf al-Mansur.’

It could not have been clearer. The
Kalibool Kolood
had been finished on the twenty-third of April, 1189.

The purpose of the letter was not hard to find. In it, Abu Ahmad claimed, he had passed on to his eldest son the secret of all secrets, the key to mastery over life and death. Anyone who wished to conquer death should recite the spells and perform the rituals detailed in the text.

The purpose of the
Matrix Aeternitatis
, then, was to teach men a method for attaining everlasting life, not through religion or mysticism or alchemy, but by magic. The book itself was to be the matrix for survival. But by the time I had finished reading, I was certain that there was something more to it than that, and I was reasonably certain what it was: the power to return to life those already dead.

It was dark, and I was frightened. I had not realized until now quite how ancient was the evil that had been wrapping me in its cloak for so many months. I thought of d’Hervilly in his cold mansion above Tangier, paying homage to gods older than the city. Of faces glimpsed by fire- or candlelight, old faces, heavily wrinkled, with the scent of death on them. And that terrible old man in Fez, sleeping death’s sleep each night, veiled like the new moon in darkness, ready to rise and grow again. Sheikh Abu Ahmad had promised eternal life: but what sort of life, and on what conditions?

I could not bear to stay in my flat. Remembering my promise to ring my mother every night, I went out to the phone box. She answered straight away and sounded more worried than before.

‘He had another attack today. It’s still with him, poor soul; he’s in terrible pain. The doctor says he’s to be flown ashore as soon as possible. They’ve reserved a bed for him at the Royal Northern Infirmary in Inverness. I’ll be going with him, of course. No doubt if he needs to go to Edinburgh they’ll send him there. Do you think you could manage to come up?’

I hesitated. There was no real excuse I could give, and I could not begin to tell my mother the true reason.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ I said. ‘Give me a day or two to clear things here.’

‘He’ll not be in that long, Andrew. He’s only to stay a couple of days, just for them to run their tests. A scan of some sort, the doctor said he’d have.’

‘I’m sure that’s right, though I daresay they’ll find nothing. No tumour or anything like that.’

‘You sound very certain, Andrew. I wish I could be as sure as you. Even Dr Boyd says he doesn’t know what they’ll find.’

‘Let’s say it’s an instinct I have.’

‘Do come up, son. He’ll be pleased to see you, I know. He’ll only speak in Gaelic now. Every night he has bad dreams, but he won’t say what they’re about. Maybe he’ll talk to you. It would do him good.’

We talked a little longer, and I promised I would ring the following night. I said nothing about Catriona’s grave or the dead child found there. If my mother had read the newspaper reports, she would not have guessed the identity of the grave, and it was better for her to remain in ignorance.

When I put down the receiver, I saw that it had grown even darker outside. It was late now, and the pubs were either closing or closed. I had nowhere to go except back to my rooms. The thought curdled inside me like sour milk. I picked up the phone again and asked for enquiries. They gave me the number of Harriet’s hotel. I rang reception and asked to be put through.

‘Yes, who is it?’

‘It’s me, Andrew. Please don’t put down the phone. I have to speak to you. I wasn’t to blame for what happened this morning.’

There was a long pause. I expected her to slam the receiver down any moment, but she did not. Finally, she broke the silence.

‘I’m sorry about what happened, Andrew. It was rude of me. But . . .’

‘You didn’t stay, you didn’t give me a chance to explain.’

‘I’m sorry, but after . . .’

‘You treated me like someone who would deliberately play a trick like that on you. Didn’t you think about it afterwards? Didn’t you ask yourself why I would want to do a thing like that?’

‘I thought maybe you . . . I don’t know. That you were sick . . .’

Her voice tailed away. She did not want to be more explicit.

‘The book was put there in place of a copy of
Desperate Remedies.
I bought it for you in a shop near Tolcross yesterday afternoon. It cost me four pounds. The bookseller substituted the book you saw for the one I bought. Do you believe me?’

‘I . . . Andrew, I just don’t know. The whole thing seems so incredible.’

‘It is incredible. I can’t take it in any more than you. But it is happening. Iain is dead. My father has started to have the same symptoms. Catriona’s grave has been tampered with twice, and a child has been killed. Do you believe any of those things?’

‘Of course I do, but . . .’

‘Then believe me when I tell you I did not know that book was in the package. If you’re willing to listen to me, I can tell you more about the book and why it was placed there.’

There was a short pause.

‘Very well,’ she said, ‘I’ll come in the morning.’

‘No, tonight.’

‘Andrew . . .’

‘Please, Harriet. Tomorrow may be too late. I can’t take the risk of falling asleep on my own. He’s close, I know he is.’

‘What is it, Andrew? What are you frightened of?’

‘Mylne, don’t you see? He’s looking for me. He’s getting desperate. He needs me to bring back Catriona from the dead. It’s what he chose me for, why he trained me, why he revealed so many of his secrets to me. Come tonight, Harriet. It may be too late in the morning.’

There was a long pause.

‘All right,’ she said. Her voice sounded very far away. ‘I’ll need your address.’

The streets were abnormally quiet. I walked back past tall grey buildings, pursued by echoes. My footsteps were magnified. Once, I thought I heard scurrying at my back, but when I looked round the pavement was empty.

I let myself in and made my way upstairs nervously. My neighbours on the first two floors had gone away for the weekend and would not be back till morning. The house, like the streets outside, was dark and silent. Nothing moved. Yet.

Locking my door, I took out the two books I had kept back and found the passages I needed. Starting with the lintel above my door, I began to construct a series of magical defences against the forces threatening me. I drew pentacles and circles that I filled with spells and symbolic devices. It was, I knew, the work of a novice, but I had nothing else with which to ward off any attack.

Shortly after midnight, my doorbell rang. Harriet had not wasted any time. As I let her in, I saw her look askance at the circles and stars with which I had covered my door and the middle of the floor.

‘Believe me,’ I said, ‘they are necessary.’

‘They look like the work of a madman, Andrew. And look at you, you’re in a dreadful state. You still haven’t shaved, you probably haven’t eaten.’

‘That isn’t important.’

‘Yes,’ she said impatiently, ‘it is. If you let yourself go, you’ll just become weaker. I still don’t understand what this is all about, but I’m sure most of it has to do with mental states. Come on, get yourself tidied up while I make us something to eat.’

‘There’s nothing in the kitchen.’

‘You don’t imagine I hadn’t thought of that? I stopped and got some things on the way. Now, hurry up, you’re making me nervous.’

I showered, shaved, and washed my hair. In the bedroom I found fresh underwear and a shirt. I felt fresher than I had done in days. Harriet had made a chilli, and it was already on the table. I sat down opposite her, cheered by her presence, feeling hope return, and with it sudden appetite.

‘I feel as if I haven’t eaten in days,’ I said.

‘You probably haven’t had a decent meal in months. This isn’t up to much, but what can you expect a girl to find on a Sunday night on the outskirts of Edinburgh?’

We ate in silence for a while. Slowly, a sense of harmony was restored between us. I began to tell Harriet what I knew about the
Matrix
and she listened without interrupting, with great attentiveness. When I finished, she sat for a while deep in thought, toying with the last of her rice.

‘You must not go to see your father,’ she said at last.

‘I know; but I need to talk to him. He can help me, I know he can.’

She shook her head.

‘If Mylne had Iain killed in order to stop him warning you about him, he won’t stop at killing your father.’

‘You believe me, then?’ I asked.

‘Your father’s symptoms are really the same as Iain’s?’

I nodded.

‘Identical, as far as I can tell. It’s too much of a coincidence.’

‘Yes, it is. But I don’t understand how Mylne knew your father was planning to come here. And I don’t know why I haven’t been attacked myself.’

‘I’ve wondered about that too,’ I said, ‘but I don’t have an answer.’

‘You said you thought Mylne wanted to bring Catriona back to life.’

‘Yes, I do. That’s why he had her body dug up. That’s the reason for the objects found in the grave, the dead child. It’s all there in the
Matrix Aeternitatis
. You can read it for yourself later. Even in the English translation it’s quite clear.’

‘Why do you suppose he needs you?’

‘That’s in the book as well. The seventh chapter. If the ritual is performed by someone to whom the dead person had a close attachment, someone they want to return to and who would desire to have them back, there is a much higher chance of success.’

‘It’s not automatic, then?’

I shook my head.

‘There are serious dangers, both physical and spiritual, but mainly the latter. The smallest error in any of the rituals can result in tragedy. There have been cases of the wrong person being brought back. Of forces being incarnated that have outgrown the magician’s control. Things have entered this world from outside that should never have been allowed in. I can’t make sense of everything he writes, but the sense of danger is very immediate. If Mylne could persuade me to perform the necessary rites, Catriona’s return would be that bit more certain.’