( Prologue - First 15 Pages)
THE KABALYON KEY 
CHARLES WESTBROOK
Aum...brel...la
In the middle of a sun-scorthed desert, the thirsty shepherd and his flock approached the flowering acacia, its gnarled and twisted branches reaching toward heaven. Flickering shards of sunlight filtered past its leaves. He heard the sound of birds.
Prologue
He directed his coffin to be made on yesterday morning: Had all his keys put under his head. He had frequently declared that he did not wish to live any longer than the 4th July; & was not afraid to meet death. The night before last he said I resign myself to my God. – Joseph Cabell to John Cocke, 4 July 1826.
Cloaked in the black of night, a pulsing glow through the glass globe of a lantern fitfully illuminated the darkness.
Two sweat-drenched U. S. Army privates clothed in red shirts and dirt-covered blue trousers held up by Y-back suspenders clambered atop a loose earthen mound tracked with ankle-deep footprints that spiraled to an opened grave. One private blew out a match he had used to relight the dying wick of a kerosene lantern he clenched in his hand. The other private slumped in exhaustion, clutching the sturdy oak handle of a shovel plunged vertically into the ground.
“The light went dead, sir. I’m sorry.” The private holding the lantern waved his hand in front of his face to chase away the sooty stench of the flame.
“Don’t let it happen again,” a raspy voice called out from the bottom of the grave.
“How does it look, sir?” The private aimed the lantern over the edge of the opened pit.
“Very well preserved,” replied an officer in a naval uniform. Hunching forward, he examined the condition of a closed, lead-lined cedar casket. He hastily brushed away clumps of loam covering its lid, revealing a finely carved circular crest of two scrolled letters surrounded by the words:
REBELLION TO TYRANTS IS OBEDIENCE TO GOD
“I’m going to pry it open,” the officer explained, wedging the blade of a chisel into a seam, where the lid joined to the inner leaden coffin. He struck the chisel with a wooden mallet. Rap ... tap ... A loud crackle pealed the air as he broke the soldered seal. He dropped his tools and anchored the ends of his fingers under the edge of the lid. “Hold that light steady.”
The heavy wooden lid creaked as he lifted and shoved it to one side.
“Goddamn, look at him.” The officer glared at the secretive smirk on the face of the hallowed corpse sleeping with the earth.
A night owl screeched, “Who ... Who ... Who do you see?”
The eyes of both privates widened as they knelt down to get a closer look.
“Immortal demigod, it’s the Devil himself.” One of the privates bowed his head and swiped his hand in front of his face and chest in the sign of the cross. “He’s the spit and image of his portraits. He could have been buried just yesterday!”
“Petrified,” the officer remarked. “It must be the soil.”
“There it is, sir.” The other private gestured with a firm handhold on the swaying lantern. “It’s tucked under his left hand, exactly where Major Ficklin's reported on the preacher from Burrowsville claimed it would be.”
Sweeping, light-filled shadows rippled back and forth across the grave.
“I see it.” The officer leaned forward and gingerly tugged on a red, leather-bound book. “He’s got one hell of a grip on this thing.”
The officer pried the book free with a forceful jerk. The book flew open and ancient pages, barely clinging to the binding, separated into a falling blanket over the corpse.
“Move the light this way," the officer cried. "Some of the pages fell out—”
“There, sir.” The private wielding the lantern spotted a brittle, worm-eaten page lying outside the casket.
The other private pulled the shovel from the ground and pointed with the handle. “Another page is over there.”
“I think I have them all.” The officer shuffled the detached pages back into the sticky, mildew-slickened cover of the book.
“Don’t forget the keys,” the private holding the shovel reminded. “General Cocke's letter we found at Bremo said the keys were hidden under his head.”
The officer groped under a velvet pillow supporting the corpse’s head. “I feel something.” He retrieved a wadded up leather chord tied to two brass keys and bundled around a sculptured walnut-size clay figure of a human skull. He eyed the Cross of Saint Andrew carved on the back of the skull. "A Scottish token ... I’ve got them,” he affirmed, slipping the items into his coat pocket.
Suddenly, a bull-throated voice bellowed out of the darkness, “Is that the book?”
“Yes, it is, sir.” The officer peered up through the harsh wash cast from a lantern brandished before the bearded face of a gangly gentleman wearing a gray towncoat and matching coachman top hat.
“Hand it to me,” the man in the gray coat directed in a pragmatic tone. He held out his opened hand.
The officer carefully passed the book to him.
“Un-believ-able.” The man’s voice clipped with impatience as his deep-set eyes pored over the cover of the deteriorating book. “And to think that Barclay spent nearly three years searching for this.” The tips of his fingers traced over two Greek letters hand-tooled into the binding. “This will do. Close the casket, man. And cover his grave. We have what we came here for. I will not be accused of sacrilege. We are not common grave robbers.”
“Yes, sir.” The officer dropped to one knee and repositioned the lid over the coffin. The lid slid shut, and the smiling face of the corpse obscured into darkness. Next to the pillow lay an undetected, single sheet of curled and yellowed parchment. Faintly penned words and numbers read:
Ecossais - Agnus Dei Palfrenieri - Sandalyon - Arianism - Dogo-deiwos
Eochaid-Lugus - Logos - Dominus Hibernae
The Holy Head - An Ancient Field - Eden Cumbrian Halfdam
Pietà - Dùn Breatainn - Gibeah to the Tomb of Amos
Et in Arcadia ego - Medusa's Child - A Trojan Horse
A Deadly Fraud is This
Poggiobonizio - Kells - Caraccone - Shadwell - Vertheuil - Colle
Corotoman - Chadwick -
Reni - Aristotle - Plato - Clepsydra - Caravaggio
Cavandish - Fokás - Kefallonia - Grenville - Drake
Ohio Company - Meigs - St. Clair - ARARAT - Castle Williams
Honi soit qui mal Y pense
The private dropped the shovel and pulled with a two-fisted handgrip, as he assisted the officer up from the grave. “I thought our orders were to remove the body?”
“Only from the Mazzei grave. You heard him. Cover it up,” the officer commanded, stepping surefootedly onto solid ground.
The private grabbed the shovel and scattered freshly turned earth over the coffin in the wearisome tap, tap, tap ... tap, tap, tap ... of a Devil’s tattoo.
The man in the gray coat held tightly to the book. Treading over a soggy humus of decaying leaves, he stepped past a small pile of bricks and tiles stacked at the end of another opened grave. A sprig of hemlock snapped under his foot. He sat down on the remains of a broad, fragmented marble slab next to a battered, six-foot-tall granite obelisk, which rested on top of temporary wooden rollers. He lifted his lantern above his head. “Hold this lamp,” he instructed.
The officer moved closer to the misshapen obelisk and grasped the lantern. The shadows shifted. A few of the worn, lichen-stained words carved on one side of the obelisk, like a hidden message, were barely visible in the flickering light.
“... Author of the Declaration ...
Statute
... for Religious Freedom ...”
The man with the book turned to a page still clinging to the binding. “This is as fascinating as his copies of the Lex,Rex, the Mabinogion, the De Re Rustica, the Vastu Shastra, and the Cyropaedia. It's a map of some sort ... for the Domesday—a language of symbols—a philosophy of the ages. We think only in signs.” He unfolded a bookmark formed from a dog-eared, Continental sixty dollar bill, imprinted with an emblem of a tilted terrestrial sphere encircled by a motto from the book of Psalms, DEUS REGNAT EXULTET TERRA. “God reigns, let the Earth rejoice,” he translated, placing the fragile treasure back into the book. “Now, hand me the keys,” he ordered.
“Here, take them.” The officer pulled a leather cord dangling two keys from his pocket and dropped them into the man’s waiting palm. He peeped over the man’s shoulder at the strange symbols and faded illustrations scribed on the opened pages. “What do you see, Mr. Peirce?”
“I see ... our destiny.” His fingers curled around the keys.
One Year Later
Thus saith the Lord God: ‘Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.’ – Isaiah 28:16-17. The stone which the builders refused has become the head stone of the corner. – Psalm 118:22.
STONES. MASSIVE STONES, hewn and unhewn marble blocks stacked on top of one another, surrounded two Army officers like a temporary fort in defense from an unseen evil. Behind them towered an enormous stone block wall, outlined by the amber glow of the alpha-dawning beauty of morning. The officers were dressed in uniforms of plain, dark blue trousers and single-breasted sack coats with five convex gilt buttons down the front. A gold laurel and a palm wreath encircling a silver castle on the front of their forage caps identified them as U. S. Army Engineers. The insignia on their general staff shoulder straps ranked one officer as a captain and the other as a first lieutenant.
The rickety cadence of iron-edged, wooden wheels turning on bent axles filled the air as an open carriage pulled by a team of high-stepping, snorting horses rolled up and stopped. The coachman sat motionless. The passenger, a man with a serious face framed behind a graying mustache that merged with his sideburns, energetically jumped to the ground. He tucked the sleeve of his coat under the cuff of the rider's glove protecting his left hand. His fingers brushed over a row of spiderweb patterned gold buttons beneath a circular patch depicting a golden square and compass. The insignia on his collar marked his rank as a Lieutenant Colonel. He peered in the direction of the junior officers and approached the encampment in a stiff-legged stride.
“Good morning, sir,” they said in unison, standing to attention.
“Is everything ready?” the colonel asked. “I want to inspect the outer casing.”
The captain nodded, patting a bulky, brown leather haversack hanging from his shoulder.
“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant motioned. “This way, to the lift.”
The three blue figures disappeared into the darkness as they merged with the shadow cast by the stone wall that loomed before them. Their knee boots clapped across twenty-inch-wide, solid oak planks that served as a walkway over the mudholes at the base of the wall. They stepped onto a metal gantry that supported a cumbersome wooden lift suspended from cables, connected to block and tackle that extended straight into the air.
“Go!” the captain shouted, rotating his forearm. With a lopsided jolt, the lift, bit by bit, crept upwards. High above them could be heard the loud clicking and clacking of ropes pulling and metal gears grinding against metal gears.
“We are leaving hallowed ground,” the colonel murmured in a New England accent. His eyes shifted from side to side in the shadowy ambience as he inspected the repairs to the seams between the white marble blocks. “It’s well built now." He gazed upward at the approaching edge of the wall. "With its new foundation, it should support the weight of the world.”
Emerging from the shadow into the somber sunlight, the three officers were greeted by the sight of a seventy-foot-tall balance crane arching over the other side of the wall. The rigging on the crane’s hoist resembled the mast and boom of a tall ship with the sails removed.
“A Sororium Tigillum, the Sister's Gibbet.” The colonel tugged at his glove as he studied the crane.
“How’s your hand?” the captain inquired.
“I have a strong hand. The wound is healing.”
With another quick jolt and a pendulum sway, the unsteady lift came to a halt. Cautiously they crossed over to a wooden catwalk that wrapped over the top of the fifteen-foot-wide wall. Slipping on grains of sand scattered across the catwalk, the colonel grabbed the lieutenant’s arm and caught his balance.
“Be careful. Watch your step,” the lieutenant warned.
“Christ!” the colonel barked. “You need to keep this place clean.” He held up his empty fist and stomped his foot. “There could be an accident.”
The lieutenant snapped to attention.
The colonel locked his eyes directly with the lieutenant’s. “This will not be the site of someone’s grave. There will be no accidents!”
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant acknowledged in a thick Scottish brogue. “Don’t get festered, sir. It will not happen again.”
“To the transit, sir,” the captain suggested.
The officers paraded forward. One by one, birds perched along the edge of the wall glided into the air in a V-shaped pattern, as though pushed away by the an invisible force that enveloped the three officers.
“Sir, the theodolite has been set up over the newly laid stone from the river.” The lieutenant pointed to a three-legged surveyor’s transit erected over a one-foot-square stone block standing between two wooden instrument boxes. “It’s at the the northwest corner. It's sighting the marker that replaced the first obelisk on the main line.”
“The plumb line. Is it true?” the colonel asked as they approached the transit. “It must be true.” He eyed the brass bob suspended from the precision geared theodolite, its taut string ever-so-slightly vibrating as it hovered into place over a four-inch-square hollow cutout for a Lewis key.
“It’s as accurate as science will allow,” the lieutenant replied.
The colonel stopped short, his arms bent at the elbows with his hands resting on his waist. He keenly serpentined rearward, his face rubbernecking upward. “Plato's Heaven. Not a cloud in the sky. We’re blessed. It’s a perfect day for this,” he boomed.
“It’s the only day this year,” the lieutenant remarked.
“Correct, we need to get this right.” The colonel cocked his head and sighted at transite over the stone. “Is it aligned in the right direction? Are you sure it’s polar?”
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant replied. “I’ve followed the shadow method, equal altitudes, as well as Polaris observations. I’ve rechecked it twelve times. It’s an optical illusion. The walls are not straight. Nothing looks straight from this height.” He stooped down and raised the lid from one of the boxes. “I see myself....” He grinned at his reflection in the miirrored finish of a ten-inch-diameter, gourd-shaped, brass orb securely resting inside the felt-lined box.
“The Helmholtz resonator," the colonel marveled. "Does it work?”
Cupping the resonator in his hands, the lieutenant lifted it from the box. “Listen,” he shared. “It’s a deep, hollow, moaning sound.” He positioned it into a beveled indention at the base of the stone.
The colonel pulled at his trousers, crouched down, and placed his ear to the opening at the end of the long neck of the resonator. “Mother Earth ... I hear it. The singing siren over the spindle of necessity. It’s like the constant hum from a nautilus shell.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Your compass, Lieutenant.”
The lieutenant unfastened the buttons of his coat, reached inside, and retrieved a military pocket compass attached to a tarnished chain that hung from his neck. He unclipped it and flipped open the cover engraved with Oriental markings and symbols. “Here, sir.”
The colonel held the compass close to his face, mesmerized by its hurling needle. “The bone of Haroeri. A seaman’s secret. A paradoxal compass of the wise. This still amazes me. It’s the only compass I’ve ever seen that does this.” He positioned the compass on a ceramic cradle connected to a brass pedestal directly beneath the theodolite. The words Alvan Clark and Sons of Cambridgeport, Mass. were etched into the pedestal.
“It's like an astrolabe for the sun and the moon. Set it to the plus on the rose,” the lieutenant instructed, “then rotate the outer ring to locate the lunar nodes.”
The colonel leaned forward, stretched his neck, and sighted through the scope with one eye closed and one arm crossed behind his back. His eye fixed on the fine-wired X of the lens centered on a hand-size, gold-painted ball perched at the top of a rusty metal pole. “The crosshairs are on the tip of the marker,” he muttered. “Good job, Lieutenant.”
Standing erect, the colonel pulled a crumpled scrap of paper from his pocket and referenced a list of notes, numbers, and calculations.
Decus et tutamen ab illo - Book of Loagaeth - Anthemius On burning-glasses
N
1. Massebah Tumoulus - Peregrinus deviation – 7 degrees 50 minutes - Hobne map
2. URSE - Shiva - Selene - Kocbah to Mizar – Polaris according to Kabalyon
3. 5 / 15 degrees 40 min – I = (Jnought)^2 * ((k * d * r)/(2*Z)) - Spectral density
4. Magnetic Declination 10W 3 degrees, 56 min – Monoceros - Full Moon - Venus rising - Arago - Jyotirlingam - Shi'ur Qomah
5. 1 degree 7 minutes – Rodrigues rotation formula, counterclockwise space
transformation – Sept 18 morning – Sattvik 7.83Hz – U. S. Coast Survey – C. S. Peirce
6. Potential barrier – Point where the height of energy barrier is precisely equal
to the total energy, and kinetic energy is zero. Golden string – Collapse of wave
function to rebuild new wave – The Unconscious Influence – Ref. notes from
chronoscope paper by Dr. B. Brown Williams, professor of electrical-psychology
7. Hippodamian grid - Harrisburg Obelisk – John Ballendine – Old Scotch Tom – Yorktown – Otter Town - Aligned to Dr. Maule’s 1725 survey of Beth - El at Somerset -
Acquired from Maj. Gen. Foster and Gen. Potter’s raid on Washington and Tarboro
He skillfully rotated the theodolite to a new bearing, then sighted. “I can see the mast on their dome.” He referenced his notes, angled the scope toward the ground, and sighted again. “It’s centered on his stone—our Zoheleth.” He reset the scope, degree by degree, raising the altitude. “It’s sited on Levy’s statue. I see the eyes of the Father holding the Declaration.”
“Everything's lined up,” the captain said, recording the observations in an oversized, green-marbled ledger he had retrieved from his haversack. Handwritten notes and calculations crowded its margins. The title block at the top of the lined page read: U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS.
The colonel checked the scrap of paper one last time. He increased the altitude, rotated the scope west, then cupped his eye to the lens. “The error is as wide as the District. The moon is not at perigee. Newcomb was right. The lunar tables were wrong. It’s nearing its position with Alcyone. The star of the individual and her six sisters, the daughters of Atlas, at the hub of the Logos. Venus should be rising. Eighteen days ’til the start of the eclipses of the sun and moon.”
High above the three officers, a full moon hovered in the western sky.
“The eye of the Gorgon's head is in the crosshairs,” the colonel judged, still spying through the scope across the sea of the moon. “It's converging on the crater.” He rotated the scope nearly 180 degrees while lowering its angle. “I see the Gillis Marker on the old meridian. It’s dead center. An excellent job, Lieutenant.”
The captain approached the transit, bent down, and opened the other wooden box. The hinged box unfolded in four directions to reveal a brass clock, leveled to match the plumb line of the theodolite. Smeared letters stenciled on the inside of the box read: PROPERTY OF AG BELL - COLONIAL BEACH.
“The time?” the colonel asked.
“Three minutes away from the calculations, sir,” the captain replied.
The lieutenant picked up an unfurled wig-wag flag at his feet. His arms outstretched, he signaled it above his head.
The colonel realigned the hairline marks inscribed on the rotating baseplate of the scope, then squinted through the eyepiece. Adjusting the focus, he spotted the close-up, wavy image of a man’s face smiling through a window just over a mile away. “I see old Pierpont.” The colonel smiled in recognition. He repositioned the mirror on a heliotrope attached to one side of the transit. Sunlight reflected off the mirror in a hundred, brilliant, silvery spikes.
The man in the window held up a pocket watch in front of his face, pointed to it, then stepped to one side. As he did, the light of the sun refracted through the window’s beveled glass.
“The crosshairs are perfectly aligned to the circular marks etched into the glass over his chapel,” the colonel noted.
“One minute, sir!” shouted the captain.
The colonel fine-tuned the scope to a sharper image. The light intensified, widening into a spectrum of colors that bent through the lens. “Newton has done a great job with his math,” he whispered.
“Thirty seconds!”
A quick flicker and the light glowed steadily through the eyepiece. The colonel recoiled from the scope, his eyes squeezed shut. “It’s bright. Damn, it’s bright!” He flipped a circular brass ring into position over the end of the eyepiece. The ring held a one-inch-diameter optical filter made of rose-colored gemstone. A numbered laboratory label attached to one side of the filter read: Optical-Calcite #47 Property of the Smithsonian. He sighted again through the scope. “The sun’s in the circle. Time?”
“6:35,” the captain reported, “with the atmospheric refraction correction, sir.”
“The father rises with the sun. Their calculations are correct,” the colonel acknowledged.
“The moon is overhead. It’s beginning to wane.” The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed the sky. “I see the shadow bands in the luminious soniferous aether wind. Something’s moving. Is it a shooting star or Petit’s other moon?”
“Now!” the captain shouted, his concentration synchronized with the clock.
The colonel toggled the brass ring away from the eyepiece as he sighted. He rotated the scope one degree and seven minutes, then raised the altitude with a steady hand. “Yes, yes ... I see the bird’s tail feathers.” He smiled in awe. “God’s eyes, it’s perfect! Good job, Lieutenant.” He detached the filter from the brass ring and dropped it into a gray felt pouch that hung from a knotted cord tied to his belt.
The lieutenant and the captain exchanged satisfied smiles.
“Captain, Lieutenant,” the colonel addressed them.
They stood at attention, their faces dipping in golden waves cast from the pulsating mantle of the rising sun.
“This quoin will be the chief cornerstone,” the colonel ordered. “It must not be disturbed. All measurements must be calculated from this stone. Everything must be built to a zero tolerance.”
The colonel gaped up at a flagpole attached to the top of the crane. An outdated Centennial flag with thirty-seven stars flapped in the breeze. “The flags of our fathers,” He spoke in a solemn tone. “This is our resolve. It is built upon a sure foundation. One hundred years. Gentlemen, what we are doing here must endure!”
Eight Years Later
CALCUTTA, WEST BENGAL, HINDUSTAN
“Where the hell is the little weasel?” the captain muttered, staring into the bustling mosaic of human bodies parading before the entrance to the Jatayu Hotel. He heard a resonating whirring chirp. A bent and bony snake charmer holding a pungi flute to his lips was sitting crosslegged next to a potted fern, trying to coax a king cobra from a hole in a wicker basket full of venomous vipers.
“You are an Englishman.” A shadow of a man draped in a ragged robe emerged from the faceless crowd. He pointed with his trembling hand at the captain’s dusty red uniform. “Are you worthy? Did you drink—”
“He is a crazy beggar, Captain,” Koffa’s familiar voice called out from the crowd. “Bad karma. An untouchable, not born of Purusha. Do not give him anything, or you will lose your virtue. Leave him to Bhowanee.”
“You’re late, Koffa.” The captain glared at the wily, brown-skinned Thuggee garbed in a loose-fitting, white kurta, a grimy maroon waistcoat, with a black turban coiled atop his head. He turned back toward the barefooted stranger. The outcaste had vanished.
“The crowds, Captain. There are a million people in the streets of Kalikatta. We have plenty of time. The shop is just down the street, near the Oxford Mission. The manager will be waiting. First,” Koffa reminded with an upturned palm, “my payment. No paper, only silver rupees as we agreed.”
The captain pulled a leather pouch from his pocket.
“Is it all there?”
“Don’t get me festered, Koffa. I’m not wasting time counting money. I trust you. Don’t you trust me?” The captain tossed the pouch into the smuggler's waiting hands. “It’s heavy.”
“Follow me.” Koffa said, tucking the pouch into the pocket of his waistcoat. He led the captain deep into Calcutta’s southern millwork of bazaar-filled streets. “Ganga Niyama,” Koffa translated the Hindu script on a street sign. “This way.” He hustled the captain down a narrow and deserted alleyway mired with puddles of tainted water. “There is his establishment.” He pointed to a weathered placard over a red wooden door left ponderously ajar on the front of a rundown, stuccoed building.
On a stone bench beside the door, an old woman with her head covered with a blue odhani sat sobbing as she cradled a dead child wrappped in a yellow blanket.
“Her grandson died from the malaria,” Koffa said. “Sometimes it is hard to let go.” He pushed the door open. “Go inside and have a seat. The manager will be waiting.”
The captain stepped through the shadowed doorway. The door slammed shut, and he found himself in the pitch-black of a strange room. Without warning, a strong hand gripped his arm and wrenched it behind his back. “What the—” The captain’s Adam’s apple jumped in this throat at the sting from the shape edge of a cold blade.
“Listen carefully. Do not speak or move until I tell you to,” a man with a cultured
The captain drew his Beaumont-Adams service revolver from his shoulder holster and dropped it at his feet.
“I am going to ask you some questions, sir. Answer truthfully or it will be the death of you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Who sent you?”
“
“
“I worked with him in
“
“Yes, I’m a three-legged surveyor. We were searching for treasure.”
“Are you English?”
“No. Scottish, from
The man withdrew his dagger and released the captain’s arm.
The captain stood perfectly still, his muscles tense. He heard the strike of a match and the room illuminated from the single flame of a lantern.
“So, you are the officer Koffa told me about. I am Mohandas Freer, the manager of this fine shop. I cater to the connoisseurs of Indian aesthetics.” He waved his jagged-edged blade of Damascus steel in front of the captain’s face. “Why are you here?”
“Like you don’t know?” the captain answered smugly to the brutish Bengali in a gray serwani jacket and a red fez topped with a white feather. “To see the map to the treasure of Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu.”
“Na-Ma-Si-Va-Ya—the faces of God. You could easily go to the Hindu temple down the street and recite a mantra from the Vedas, or visit a vihara and meditate with a traveling Brahmin vipra from Benares to learn about that treasure.”
“I wish to discover my own way.”
“Your own way.” Freer laid his dagger on a table and stepped before a long, black veil covering a doorway. “Mokska-Patamu, the dangerous quest ... the Great Game of the emperors and the immortals.” He thoughtfully stroked his well-manicured goatee. “How old are you? Remember ... watchful of your thoughts. Truthfully.”
“Thirty-seven.” The captain eyed the Y-shaped cross carved on the dagger’s ivory handle as he flicked the back his middle finger across his neck and wiped away a drop of blood.
“Do you seek this treasure for yourself?”
“No.”
“Do you seek it for
“No.”
“So ... for whom do you seek this treasure?”
“My children and my children’s children.”
Freer lifted his lantern and pulled the veil to one side. “Come with me, Captain.” He led the captain into a backroom and approached a small square table draped with a dingy cloth. A bundled linen sheet, stained in hues of red, purple, and brown, was piled high at its center. Freer tied the lantern to the end of a rope suspended from a wooden beam arching over the table.
The captain peered through the dim light at the wallshelves filled with rolls of silk cloth, canvas bags stuffed with tea, and shipping boxes labeled: David Sassoon & Co. He detected the hypnotic scent of opium. An ornatedly carved jade pipe lay on one shelf next to a statuette of the goddess Isi mounting a seven-headed vâhana while holding a boy with almond-shaped eyes. On the facing wall hung a circular mandala bounding the monstrous head of Makara attached to the body of a golden fish. He looked toward the end of the room at a stone effigy of Maitreya, the future Buddha, with a broken hand and a foot missing, sitting on the floor below two framed color portraits of Queen
“Many have come before you in search of this treasure.” Freer gestured with his hands toward the table. “Look!” He slowly lifted the stained sheet. “And wonder ...”
The captain’s eyes narrowed. “Jesus ...” He squenched his noise from a foul stench. Three bearded human heads with their eyes gouged out lay in a green-brown soup of liquid muck that filled a large silver platter.
“Your predecessors,” Freer chuckled. “The Three Excellencies—a Frenchman, a Spaniard, and an Italian. Brahma built our world from the heads of careless men such as these who thought they could discover their own way.” With one hand, Freer lifted one of the heads high into the air by its blood-matted hair. “Mother’s milk ...” Lumps of wiggling white maggots leached out from its severed neck onto the platter. “Are you certain you are prepared for this quest?”
“No,” the captain answered calmly. “That’s why I need a map.”
Freer plunked the head back to the platter. Decaying flesh slid off bone. “You are a curious man, Captain. You know all the right answers.” Tap— Freer knuckle-rapped the table. “Alright, I’ll show it to you.” He placed the platter with its contents on a nearby shelf, then returned to the table. With both hands, he snatched the tablecloth like an artful magician, swirling it upside down and back onto the table.
The captain stepped closer. “A map ...”
“Yes, Captain ... hidden in plain sight.” Freer unleashed the rope tied to the beam and lowered the lamp toward the map. “I acquired this rare find from the discarded papers of Sir Henry Rowlinson on the Hangseseshwari temple to the goddess Kali—the skull collector who rules over the seven sacred villages of Saptagram. This map is as old as the first
The captain retrieved a brass pocket compass from a leather pouch attached to his belt. He flipped it open, bent forward, and aligned it to the map. “A well-marked road. It leads to ...” He paused. “I've seen this before. On the stele Dieulafoy discovered near the Chogha Zanbil ziggurat in Khuzestan. A cross ... a figure of some sort—”
Slam— The table shook as Freer dropped the palm of his hand over the figure on the map. “One more question, sir.” His eyes were fixed on the symbols engraved on the cover of the captain’s pocket compass. “Truthfully ... Who are you?”
The captain squarely met Freer's gaze in the subdued light from the lantern’s flame. “Andrew Alexander Winston.”
One Hundred Years Later
HOLY TRINITY PREPARATORY SCHOOL, GEORGETOWN, MARYLAND
The glass-paneled door of the classroom swung open. A nun in a blue habit, with a paternoster rosary marked with gauds of knotty rudraksha seeds and bone clattering at her waist, entered the room clutching a purple file folder labeled: RSCJ. Her radiant white coiffed hood spread out over her head like bird wings, as she stepped behind a podium in front of a wide, slate-green chalkboard. ACCELERATED CLASS FOR ADVANCED LEARNERS was scrolled in bold letters across the top of the board, partially screened by an overhanging, retractable wall map of the world. A wooden plaque inscribed with the words, Use one's God-given gifts to become the very best person possible, hung high above the map. Directly above the plaque, the sweeping second hand on a circular clock passed twelve and the minute hand clicked to 9:18.
“Good morning, Sister Rosalyn,” the mixed class of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders greeted in unison.
“Good morning, my little lambs,” Sister Rosalyn Pierina acknowledged. She pinched the black plastic-framed reading glasses hanging from her neck and held them to her eyes while thumbing through the papers in her folder. “Today I want to illustrate a lesson on the power of prayer. Please, move your chairs closer. Place them in a semi-circle around me, so everyone can see.” She waved her arms in a circular motion. “Gather ’round. Front row and center.”
The class of twelve students, all dressed in school uniforms of matching colors, dragged their chairs across the floor and rearranged them in the shape of a crescent moon around Sister Rosalyn.
“In a newspaper article, I read the following story about an American photographer who covered the war in Korea.” Sister Rosalyn glanced back and forth between the papers in her hand and the young faces before her. “According to the newspaper, this photographer was taking photographs while walking through a field of dead American soldiers. Hundreds of young men lay bloodied and lifeless in a frozen field of ice and snow. The photographer wondered how such a good God could let something so horrible happen. So the photographer began to question the existence of God.”
“Surely the man would not doubt the existence of God,” a young girl commented in disbelief.
“This man did,” Sister Rosalyn stressed. “So the photographer prayed to God to help him overcome his doubts. ‘If you really exist, show me a sign,’ the photographer pleaded as he prayed before the field of the dead.” Sister Rosalyn lifted her eyes to her young audience. “That’s what we do, if we have doubts. We must pray to God for an answer. What do you think God did?” she prompted.
“I don’t know,” said a young boy, shaking his head.
Sister Rosalyn gave the boy a bucktoothed smiled. “When the photographer developed his film, he discovered that he had accidentally taken a photograph of the ground. To his amazement, he saw a strange shape formed by a mudhole in the middle of a slush of blue-white snow. He held the photograph up to the light and gazed at it. When he closed his eyes, he saw an afterimage of a circle of light outlining a familiar face.”
“Whose face did he see?” a young girl asked.
Sister Rosalyn smiled again. “The experience made the man a believer. The face he saw was the face of God. God had shown himself and answered the man’s prayer. Sometimes, all we have to do is ask.” She withdrew a xeroxed copy of a photograph from her folder. “The seeds of knowledge come by way of the eye.” She lifted her rosary from her side and serenly closed her eyes. “ 'Lord, I do seek your face. Do not hide it from me.' ” She opened her eyes. “This is a miracle picture. Children, I want you to look at this photograph for thirty seconds,” she instructed. “Then close your eyes and lean your head back, and tell me what you see.” She passed the photo to the boy in front of her.
Each child in turn examined the linga of black and white splotches.
“What do you see, Freddy Holbrook?” the sister asked a red-headed, freckled-faced boy.
“I don’t see anything,” Freddy said sourly. He handed it to the boy next to him.
“What about you, Raymond McCartney? What do you see?” Sister Rosalyn asked again.
Raymond opened his eyes wide, then squeezed them shut. He hesitated. “I don’t see anything either.” He shook his head and sighed. “Maybe a J and a heart?”
“Hand it to me, hand it to me,” the girl sitting next to him demanded. She snatched the photocopy from Raymond’s hand.
“And what do you see, Jane Elizabeth Walker?” Sister Rosalyn asked with a stern expression.
Jane Elizabeth glanced directly at the pinto photo. She closed her eyes and tilted her head upward, as if preparing to pray. “I don’t see anything,” she admitted in a pouting whine. She reluctantly passed it to the boy next to her.
“And you, James Winston. What do you see?” the sister questioned, her eyes riveted on the boy.
James, the youngest in the class, gazed at the copy of the photograph, burning what he saw into his mind’s eye. His eyes blinked, then closed. A confident smile spread across his face.
“I see the face of God, hidden in plain sight.”
He opened his probing blue eyes and stared at the Pal Cross engraved on a circular gold pendant attached to the front of Sister Rosalyn’s habit.
Seven Years Ago
CAPRAROLA, NORTHERN LATIUM,
A wrinkled-faced bishop endowed in black with a wide scarlet sash around his hips stood alone on the balcony of the Royal Stairs of the Villa Farnese. His brow creased as his eyes wandered over the colorful landscapes, grotesques, and emblems embellishing the walls of the central colonnaded courtyard.
“Welcome, Archbishop Bracciolini,” a voice echoed. “It is an honor to be visited by the secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.” A cheerful, bald-headed Benedictine monk stumbled over the hem of his gray habit as he hurried up the wide marble stairway. “Scusi, Archbishop. I am running late. I am Monsignor Flavius Luni. I am your guide. Is this your first time to the villa?”
“Once before,” Bracciolini replied with downturned eyes at the awkward monk, “when I was younger.”
“This beautiful villa was commissioned in 1559 by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, a nephew of Pope Paul III.” Luni fidgeted with the sleeve of his habit. “It was built by the architect Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola on the foundations of an old fortress, the reason for its pentagonal shape. Vignola was one of the architects of the
“Sì.” Braccolini nodded.
“During the High Renaissance, the Farneses were a very influential family in Caprarola. Our city was once a center of Christian Kaballic teaching.”
“Monsignor Luni, I am only interested in the Room of Maps. I need to compare the zodiac on the sky map to the illuminations from this codex unearthed during the excavation of the Temple of Asclepius in Aydin, Turkey.” Bracciolini held out a red, leather-bound book gripped in his six-fingered hand, its cover embossed with the image of a woman cradling two children.
“This way, Archbishop.” Luni led Bracciolini up the spiraling stairway to the fifth floor loggia and approached a large set of grilled doors. “We keep this room locked during the winter.” He groped through the pocket of his habit and retrieved a ring of keys. “The key.” The keys slipped through his fingers, falling onto the foot of the archbishop. “Scusi.” Luni bowed down as though to kiss the archbishop’s feet and picked them up.
Bracciolini smirked in disapproval.
“The key that locks this room, also unlocks.” Luni tested a key in the keyhole of the rusty lock. “But sometimes you have to turn it the other way.” Clunk— He pushed open the heavy door and ushered his guest into an immense room, its walls covered in maps of the world, its vaulted ceiling frescoed with a zodiac of the heavens. “The Sala del Mappamondo is an artistic marvel. These map friezes where created by Orazio Trigini de' Marii, a Renaissance specialist in cosmography and geography, and Giovanni Antonio Vanosino, a church expert on chorography and topography.”
“Topography?” Bracciolini questioned.
“Sì, the surveying of cities,” Luni replied as he pointed to the ceiling. “Some believe this sky map was modified at some later date with the addition of Jupiter, derived from a cartoon by Michelangelo.”
Bracciolini looked up at the mythical figures that formed the ornate zodiac. “The healing powers of the starry sky.” His eyes settled on the unusual depiction of Capricorn. “Two goats.” He opened his book to a marked page.
“Like the damaged map in the Sala Bologna at the
“Libra ... a fire on her altar. A Hindu or Zorastrian calendar perhaps ... health, justice, liberty. A crossed-vaulted pairing ... the solstice.” Bracciolini’s eyes traveled the ceiling, then downward to a wall map of the two
“There are seven geographic maps of the world on the walls,” Luni explained. “The niches contain the portraits of noted explorers. The two maps on the northern wall emphasize the holy cities of
Bracciolini turned a page in the codex to a drawing of a woman cradling a child below the symbol of a menorah combined with the Magen David. “A virgin ... Virgo.” He looked up, searching the ceiling for the constellation. “Aries, der Januar, Taurus, der Feber, Sagittarius...? Nein—” He shook his head. “It is not correct.”
“Remember, the signs are out of sequence, Archbishop. The zodiac in this sky map begins with Pisces rather than Aries. The corresponding months have to be read in the following order:12, 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 5, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8. This results in a shift of the sign of Virgo into the fall of the year. Some believe the relocation of Virgo on this sky map signifies the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil which prophesies the return of a virgin who would give birth to a child who would bring forth a Golden Age of Truth.”
“Ja, Ashvin.” Bracciolini nodded. “Novus Ordo Seclorum, a Virgin, the protector.”
“The proper zodiacal order for the three signs following Taurus are Gemini, Cancer, and Leo. But on this sky map they read from left to right.” Luni arched his arm, moving it from sign to sign. “Leo ... Gemini ... Cancer. This suggests a deliberate decision to emphasize Gemini. Just as Capricorn and Libra are paired, Gemini and Aries are also paired at the opposite ends of the vault.”
“Gemini—airborne in the clouds—a Solstice,” Bracciolini noted. “Aries—treading water—an Equinox. Blood of the Lamb.” He turned the page to a figuration of a three-headed shepherd embracing a lamb. “Poemandres—one flock, one shepherd, one church.” He eyed the faded drawing at the bottom of the page, a woman holding two children. “Siblings,” he murmured as he stared upward to the ceiling. “Gemini, a biform ... Twins.”
The Kabalyon Key
ISBN 978-0-9626554-1-8 /451 pages Limited Illustred Edition $29.99
The Secrets of the World are Locked Away. All You Need is the Key
The Kabalyon Key
ISBN 978-0-9626554-1-8
Illustrated Edition / 451 pages / 112 maps and illustrations / 6.6 X 9.6 / The word count is equal to two traditional novels.
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