“A piece of it, yes.” He frowned. “Unfortunately, it has been stolen. We are working to get it back.”
Missing evidence is no evidence at all, thought Cass, and once again felt the worm of suspicion squirm in her gut. Yet here she was in Damascus, about eighty years out of joint, and with no rational way to account for it. “I don’t suppose you have anything else you could show me?”
“To convince you?” He laid particular stress on the word. “Isn’t that what you mean?”
“Well, if you put it that way-what have you got to convince me?”
“One might be forgiven for thinking that your experiences up to now should have taken you a fair distance towards conviction.” He turned and gestured towards the door. “After you.”
Cass felt the mild reproach of his words as she moved towards the door. “Do you travel, Brendan?”
“Ley travel? Sadly, no. It is not for me.” Brendan followed her out and locked the genizah again. “But like it or not, Cassandra, you have become a traveller. You have traversed the hidden dimensions of a universe far more vast and varied than present science imaginesalthough some enlightened thinkers-like Einstein or Neils Bohr, for instance-are beginning to theorise about it and describe it in ways that are strikingly close to our conception of the way things are.”
Brendan allowed these words to sink in a moment, then said, “We are on the cusp of a monumental discovery. I can feel it.” He paused on the landing and turned before starting down the stairs. “I have no doubt that we will do great things together.”
“Assuming I agree to join you,” Cass stated flatly. “I still have a choice, you know.”
“Oh, of course you have a choice. You can join us or not as you wish. But ultimately, knowing what you know, I believe you will find it comes down to a choice between accepting your destiny or forever denying it. Either way you will choose, and either way you will move forward. Because, you see, there is no turning back.”
CHAPTER 26
Snipe! Put down that toad,” shouted Douglas Flinders-Petrie. “Did you hear me?”
The pale-skinned youth paused in his experiments; he glanced around at his master storming towards him across the stable yard and whipped the bloody knife out of sight.
“Stop torturing that creature, and come here. It is time to go.”
With grudging reluctance Snipe dropped the wounded toad and stood. Still hiding the knife, he wiped the blade on his trousers.
“Come with me.” Douglas started away.
Snipe waited until his master’s back was turned, then stamped on the struggling animal and ground it beneath his heel.
“Now!” called Douglas. “We’ve got work to do.”
Mouthing incoherent curses, the truculent servant fell into step behind his master, fists clenched at his sides.
“We’ve got to cut your hair, get you washed up and dressed,” Douglas told him. “And we’ve got to get to the ley by sundown if we are to have any chance of meeting up with Brother Bacon tonight.”
Having established himself in the guise of a visiting monastic scholar from Ireland, Douglas now felt free to come and go as he pleased on the streets of medieval Oxford. In the past six months he had consulted the learned professor twice on matters related to deciphering the mysterious text of a book he had stolen from the British Museum-an arcane little volume written in the form of an alphabet of intricate symbols, which the monkish professor euphemistically termed the Language of Angels.
Brother Bacon had yet to admit to composing the manuscript, but did allow that he had copied the text from another source. Douglas suspected the scholar was being overly modest, if not disingenuous- no doubt to protect himself from too-close scrutiny by nosy church authorities who tended to see heretics under every bush. The tome, handwritten on fine vellum, bore the intriguing title Inconssensus Arcanus, which roughly translated as Forbidden Secrets. A book like that would have spelt trouble for its author, and no wonder: its little pages were dense with close-crabbed, inscrutable text detailing all sorts of secrets-any one of which would have had the book’s owner tied to a stake in the marketplace with pitch-soaked kindling bundled around his naked feet. If, that is, anyone had been able to read it.
Roger Bacon was no heretic, but science and magic were uncomfortably close bedfellows in the thirteenth century, Douglas knew, and so he did not press his prime source on the matter. In any event, he was more concerned with achieving practical results than arguing metaphysics with a church-bound mystic.
Six months of migraine-inducing labour and dogged persistence had paid off, and Douglas had finished his deciphering work. It had not been easy, and without the aid of Master Bacon’s key-purloined by Snipe on their first visit to the scientist’s sanctum-it would have been impossible. He was now ready to test the accuracy of his work. To that end, the journey he planned now was to confirm all that he had learned about reading the code and how it applied to the symbols on the Skin Map.
As to the latter, he was certain Bacon knew more about interdimensional travel than he let on. There were tantalising references scattered throughout the book, and Douglas, already well versed in the subject, was not slow to pick up the hints. Most of the text was devoted to a discussion of an abstruse philosophy of which Douglas could make neither head nor tail but somehow embraced what the writer referred to as astralis dislocationem. The treasure buried in pages of this obscure volume was a table delineating the symbology of the coded language itself, a key of sorts, showing how to interpret the symbols as they related to this so-called astral dislocation.
Douglas pulled on his monastic robe and cowl and passed a critical eye over Snipe, who was now dressed as a lay brother-as far, perhaps, from angelic as the founders of the Cistercian Order could have reasonably anticipated. But shorn of his pale, wiry hair, his oval face scrubbed pink, he could pass for a being somewhat less diabolical than was his natural bent.
“Tighten your cincture,” Douglas instructed. “And tie up your sandals.”
Muttering, Snipe obeyed. Douglas, satisfied that they were ready, locked the room and departed for the ley. As it was a damp night in late autumn, the streets would be dark and, he hoped, fairly deserted. The weather was cold, and a misty fog had seeped into town from the river, so it was hoped that they could make the leap without drawing unwanted attention. Monks suddenly appearing or disappearing in plain sight tended to have a disconcerting effect on the citizenry; the uninitiated were apt to make much of the event-even in a city as sophisticated as nineteenth-century Oxford. The less dramatic Douglas could make their clandestine comings and goings, the better.
They entered Queen Street from their rooms at The Mitre and walked with purpose into the gloaming. “Look for the mark,” instructed Douglas. “It should be right about… ” His gaze swept the pavement for the chalk mark he had placed earlier in the day. “There it is.” He reached around behind him. “Your hand, Snipe.”
The surly servant slipped his hand into his master’s. “Ready? Step lively. On three.” Douglas strode out. “One…” He took a step. “Two…” And another. “Three…”
He felt his feet leave the ground and then the always slightly unnerving sensation of weightlessness and falling-but only for a step-followed by the familiar jolt in his leg bones as the ground became solid beneath him once more. The mist cleared, and he saw directly ahead the same street as before, only this time it was paved with cobbles, and instead of traffic lights there were log-burning iron braziers set up at the crossroads.
The streets of medieval Oxford were patrolled by pike-wielding bailiffs who could be expected to challenge strangers, but Douglas did not see any around. He heard a retching sound behind him and glanced back to see Snipe bent over with his hands on his knees. “When you’re ready,” he sighed impatiently.
While he was waiting, he heard the clock in Saint Martin’s ring. “It must be compline,” Douglas mused aloud. “Come on, Snipe. Wipe your mouth and be quick.”
He started towards the crossroads and turned south onto the Abbingdon Road leading to the river and the bridge upon which stood the old defensive tower-a half-ruined structure now known as Friar Bacon’s Study, or, by those of a less charitable disposition, as Bacon’s Folly. The two walked along the road, their sandals slapping the damp stones. Douglas wondered what day it was, or even what month; guesswork told him it could be any time
