The Matrix (7 page)

‘Did you?’

‘No, of course not, I . . .’

‘Then I don’t see why you should make a thing of it.’

‘It was just . . . He was very angry. I thought he might have spoken to other members.’

‘Jurczyk? No, he couldn’t have.’ He paused. There was a trace of whisky on his lower lip. His look was disconcerting. ‘I take it you know about Jurczyk?’

There was something in his voice that made my heart shiver.

‘Know?’

‘What happened to him.’

‘No, I’ve heard nothing. What . . .?’

‘He was found dead a couple of weeks ago. Margaret Laurie found him in the library one Thursday morning when she went in to type some letters. He’d been there overnight, so the doctor said.’

My heart had stopped shivering. I was cold everywhere now, just cold, as if it had become winter inside me.

‘How . . . How did he die?’

‘Heart attack. So they say. Margaret said she thought something might have frightened him. She told me his face was contorted, as though he had tried to cry out. But that’s not unusual in a heart attack. I’ve listened to enough medical reports in my time. Pain, I told her, not fear. That’s what made him look like that.’

I put down my drink. I was feeling sick. He was lying there, Jurczyk, I could see him on the library floor. Crying out.

‘When was this exactly?’ I asked.

He looked at me oddly.

‘When? I’m not sure. Early this month, a week or so after New Year.’

‘Could it have been the eighth?’

‘It could have been. Yes, I think it was. What’s wrong?’

‘That . . . was the day I had the argument with him. You don’t think . . .?’

He smiled reassuringly.

‘Oh, I’m sure not. He was an old man. A sick man. It was just a matter of time. You shouldn’t worry about that. Put it out of your head.’

I looked up and caught sight of Iain on the other side of the lounge, coming towards me. As was usual when he was lecturing, he did not wear his dog-collar. For some reason it relieved me that he did not. As he came up and greeted me, Mylne got down from his stool and picked up his coat.

‘I’ve got to be going,’ he said. ‘I have a big case to mug up on before tomorrow morning. Andrew, you must come to a meeting soon. I’ll pick you up some evening, we’ll go together.’

And then he was gone.

That night, I started dreaming again, and each night after, for a week. Every night the same dream, but always a little more; and with the lengthening of the dream, an intensification of dread.

On the first night, I dreamed I was back on Lewis, in Stornoway, with a great wind and a black sky, the sea in torment, raised high by the storm, leafless winter trees, bent and snapping. I was running through darkened streets, the doors and windows of the houses shut fast, no light shining in any of them, as though I was running through a city of the dead.

Suddenly, at the end of the street, a great black church rose up out of nowhere, grim and vast and silent, like no church I had ever seen on the island or elsewhere. As my eyes fell on it, I awoke with a start, its black shape still before my eyes and the sound of the wind rushing in my ears.

On the second and successive nights, I ran again and again through those dark, silent streets, closer and closer to the door of the black church, a door that reared high above me, dwarfing me. On the third night, I pushed it open and saw for the first time its cathedral-like interior, forbidding and dark, lit only here and there with a few stunted candles. Just as I awoke again, the door slammed behind me, cutting off the wind, and I could hear from within a strange, mournful sound, as of many voices rising and falling in unison.

By the third night, things had begun to escalate. This time, when I opened the door and looked inside, I could hear the sound of deep-throated chanting, rising to fill the vast spaces of the vault. As I listened, I thought at first that what I could hear were the metrical psalms of my boyhood. The swelling voices lifted in dirge-like strains, mournful, filled with a dark yearning, and I was sure I had come upon a great congregation of the people of Lewis, perhaps a gathering of generations of the island’s dead in a dark cathedral beyond the confines of the real world. But as I listened more closely, I realized that the words were not in Gaelic, but in a language I had never before heard.

Night after night I returned to that place in my dreams, listening to the strange chanting, straining to make out the physical details of the vast chamber in which I stood. My eyes seemed to grow rapidly accustomed to the dark, and soon I could make out the figures of the congregation standing with their backs to me, facing a dimly lit altar at the far end of the building. Their voices were deep and sonorous, but they neither swayed nor moved their heads as they chanted. Out of sight, a priest sang out the verses of a liturgy unknown to me. Strange shapes, barely visible in the pale candlelight, lurked in the shadows of the walls all about, statues or gargoyles. Something about their outlines made me glad I could not see them more clearly.

Each night, my feelings of unease mounted. I knew, without having been told, that in the shadows some unknown menace waited. The deeper I was carried into the body of the church, the greater grew my sense of foreboding. The volume of the chanting rose constantly, and with it the certainty that something unpleasant lurked ahead of me. As I drew closer to the congregation, I saw that they were dressed in white robes that fell shroudlike from shoulder to heel, and that at their feet scuttled thin white shapes, larger than rats, and more agile.

One night, as I stood filled with dread at the heart of the black church, the chanting abruptly stopped. A chilling silence filled the dark spaces. For what seemed an age, I stood in the silence and darkness, reluctantly staring at the robed figures in front of me. Then, as if at a command, they started to turn where they stood, to face me where I waited, transfixed, behind them. As my eyes fell on their faces, I woke screaming in pure terror.

I did what I could to avoid sleep the following night. The thought of what I might see made me dread unconsciousness. I drank cup after cup of strong coffee and played music throughout the night. But I could not hold out. Just before dawn, I became drowsy, and in the end, slipped into a deep sleep. When I awoke, it was early afternoon. To my surprise, I realized that my sleep had been untroubled. Untroubled, yet not normal. For I had dreamt no dreams at all.

Duncan Mylne came for me on the evening following the last dream. It did not then occur to me to ask how he knew my address. He arrived unannounced, taking my presence for granted, never questioning that I might not be ready to be collected and taken to the Fraternity. There was a presumption about him, an air of someone who does not even imagine that he may be denied. I made no objection, however. It was raining, and I was grateful for the lift. And, although I did not feel quite easy in his presence, I was sure a better acquaintance with him would prove rewarding.

The meeting was unexceptional. Watching the initiates perform their dreary rites, I could not help letting my eyes stray more than once to Mylne. He seemed bored with the whole business, like someone who goes through a ritual for the sake of habit or appearance, rather than with any inner conviction. Perhaps, I thought, this is no more than the public façade, and there are other rites reserved for an inner circle to which he and a few others belong. That would explain why a man of his intelligence might put up with the banality of this little clique, and the theatricality of its performances, week after week.

Afterwards, driving back through a slow drizzle that had set in for the night, we chatted of everyday matters, as though returning from a play for which neither of us had much cared. But as we came into the High Street, he turned and spoke in a more earnest voice.

‘Andrew,’ he said, ‘I feel we need to talk. Can you spare half an hour to have a drink? I keep some very good whisky in my rooms. They’re just down here, next to Parliament House.’

I might very well have suspected this no more than a ruse to seduce me. Mylne was, I knew, unmarried, and he had the slightly concealed manner of a homosexual whose first encounters with other men had predated the liberalization of the law; but I did not think he had designs on me, at least not of the sexual kind. I accepted his invitation readily, believing it an opportunity to probe a little more deeply into the nature of his affiliation with the Fraternity, and the extent of his involvement in occult matters.

His rooms were, like his dress, understated and expensive. Above a black marble fireplace hung an oil painting of a man in legal costume, dating from the last century. On either side of it stood two large bookcases packed with richly-bound volumes. The main chamber was more like a living room than working quarters.

He took my coat and hung it in a small closet in the hall. Within minutes he had a fire going in the hearth. I was instructed to make myself comfortable in a deep, damask-upholstered armchair, while Mylne busied himself with glasses and whisky.

‘No ice,’ he said, handing me my glass. ‘Don’t even ask me to add water. This stuff has to be taken neat.’

When I sipped it I understood: any whisky I had had before was paint stripper by comparison.

‘Well,’ he said, settling himself in the chair facing mine, ‘tell me about this business with the book.’

‘There’s not much to tell,’ I said, knowing I could never reveal what had really happened.

‘Nevertheless. I’m interested. It seems to have upset you.’

I made up a story about how I had been taken ill suddenly while working in the library and, on recovering, had found a volume in my briefcase that must have slipped in that same evening and been forgotten.

‘What was the title of this slippery book?’ he asked.

‘I . . . I can’t quite remember. It was a copy of Walker, I think, or Crowley’s
Book of the Law.
’

Mylne gave a mock shudder and sipped his whisky.

‘Not that awful thing, surely. I thought you had more sense. “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” Stuff and nonsense.’

‘I feel I have to read everything,’ I said.

‘Yes, of course. That is only natural at your stage. But there are limits. Crowley is one of them. You require some guidance. Otherwise you will waste your time on the works of charlatans. Leave Crowley to adolescent boys. You have more serious work ahead of you.’

I sensed that I was on the verge of the breakthrough I had been hoping for all this time, that I was about to breach another level in the occult hierarchy.

‘That’s easy enough for you to say,’ I retorted, hoping to draw him out yet further. ‘But where is this guidance to come from? I read what I can, attend rituals and lectures, speak with anyone who will spare me a moment. But as far as I can see, I’m on my own.’

He looked at me oddly, then set his glass down on a low table.

‘Why do you come to the meetings of the Fraternity? What are you looking for?’

‘Knowledge,’ I said, hoping it might not sound too banal. It was, at least, an approximation of the truth. ‘I’m in search of knowledge.’

‘Every Tom, Dick, and Harry is after knowledge,’ he replied. ‘You are not ordinary. I want to know what it is you seek that the ordinary man does not even guess at.’

Had I not by then read all round the subject, I might not have happened on the answer he sought. But there was one word that I had kept returning to in book after book, and I sensed it was what he was looking for from me.

‘Mastery,’ I said. ‘Real knowledge and final mastery.’

He smiled, not altogether attractively, and I knew I had said the right thing.

‘Do you think you will find it among the Fraternity of the Old Path?’ he asked.

I shook my head. I knew by now roughly where this was leading.

‘No,’ I said. ‘But everyone has to begin somewhere.’

‘That’s very honest of you,’ he said. ‘Tell me, is the library at Ainslie Place adequate for your researches?’

I shook my head again.

‘It was to begin with, but not now. The books I really want are not available. I have tried in the National Library, but either they do not have them or they will not let me see them.’

‘Oh, they have them all right. But they are kept under lock and key. You would need very important friends indeed to be given permission even to glance at them. But perhaps I can help you. I have an extensive library. Not this,’ he said, indicating the rows of leather-bound volumes behind us. ‘This is just part of my family collection. I brought them here after my parents died. But my real library I keep at home. It includes several items I think you will find of interest. Unfortunately, they are extremely valuable. You will understand if I do not offer to lend them to you. But I can bring a few of them here. I am often here in the evenings myself, preparing briefs. You are free to come when you like.’

He paused.

‘Many of the most important volumes are in foreign languages. Which are you fluent in?’

‘Latin,’ I said, ‘and Greek. I studied both of them for A-level. My father was originally a classicist. Gaelic, of course – but I expect that’s of no use. French. A little German.’

‘Hebrew?’

I shook my head.

‘A pity. There are one or two interesting treatises. And I will assume you know no Arabic.’

Again I shook my head, thinking this time of the book I had found in Ainslie Place, translated from Arabic into Latin.

‘The Arabs taught the medieval masters much of what they knew. Jabir ibn Hayyan became famous as Geber, and an entire corpus of alchemical writings appeared in his name. A book called
Picatrix
was translated into Spanish and then Latin from an Arabic text called the
Rutbat al-Hakim:
it influenced everyone from Peter of Abano to Campanella. The Baghdadi Abu Ma‘shar al-Balkhi was widely known in Europe as Albumazar, the greatest of astrologers.

‘Later, when you are more advanced, it will pay you to learn Arabic at least. However, the Latin and Greek are extremely fortunate: I had not expected them. You will need tuition in the technical terms, then we can start on some simpler texts. Come here tomorrow at seven. We will have a light dinner, then your instruction can begin.’