The Book of Q

by the unrelenting darkness.

Lamp at arm’s length, he started down the corridor to his left, his focus on the side walls, uneven rock chiseled from the mountain. From time to time, a rusted torch holder would appear, centuries beyond use, bits of stray iron hanging precariously from eroded pins. As to the cells, they came at regular intervals, six to eight paces between each, tiny hovels drawn of all air, dirt floors beneath. Surprisingly, several of them retained the faint aroma of burned leaves-why, he couldn’t explain-instant memories of long-ago bonfires quickly erased by the immediacy of the place. More difficult was determining what most of the rooms had been used for-storage, prayer, perhaps even ritual-bits of mosaics once again scattered throughout. He spent several minutes studying the tiles, hoping to find something that would invite him to “enter” and “see the light,” but there was nothing. Only a neat pattern of cells to bring him back to the stairwell, no farther along than when he had set off.

Undaunted, he retraced his steps. When he reached the stairs for a second time, he planted himself against the rock and closed his eyes. The need for a little guidance. Where would they have hidden it? The silence brought him back to the notes. It’s a game for them, he thought as he stared down at the pages. So how would they hide the “knowledge”? For want of anything better to do, he counted out the Syriac letters. Thirty-five. No luck there; the cells had stopped at twenty-two. Evidently, the Manichaeans hadn’t placed much stock in numerology. Look at the words. It has to be in the words. He continued to stare at the phrase. “Those who enter may see the light.” The light. He knew it was no metaphor for them, no spiritual allusion, but something tangible, real. Up to this point, he’d assumed “the light” had referred to the parchment. That was real. Enter and find it. Clearly, that wasn’t the case. So what down here contains the light? He began to wonder if he’d somehow missed a tray of melons along the way.

Frustration began to set in. He tilted his head back against the wall, eyes lost to the void in front of him. For nearly a minute, he stood there, thoughts of the notes slowly supplanted by an uneasy appreciation for the space around him-cold, slick walls, lifeless cells, all part of an ancient cavern left to its own decay, desolate in its entirety. What he had seen only moments before as a piece to the puzzle now took on a far more unsettling reality, one separated from any other living soul by a maze of alleys and walls and streams. Urged on by the profound isolation of the place, those images began to fly through his head in a dizzying array, so overwhelming that he began to lose all hope of retracing his steps. The pounding in his chest accelerated. Instinct snapped his head to the right, the lamp with it, a need to know that the other corridor remained empty. All that stared back was a swirl of dusty air clinging to the lantern light. Beyond it, pure darkness, childhood fears crowding in, lungs tightening, an overpowering desire for light, real light, to relieve him of his self-conjured frenzy.

Fighting it, he suddenly experienced a moment of perfect clarity.

“Those who enter may see the light.” The light.

In that instant, he knew exactly what the phrase meant. The guidance he had sought. It didn’t refer to the parchment; it referred to light itself. Actual light, to erase the darkness and dispel the fears. Light in its most tangible form, even for a Manichaean.

All he needed to do was find its source.

His heart slowed, the air once again breathable, the glint of possibility holding his panic at bay. Thinking back on the last fifteen minutes, he knew the source wasn’t in any of the cells; he’d searched them too well to have missed something that obvious.

Or had he? It suddenly struck him that perhaps the light he was looking for needed complete darkness to make itself known. Any sort of shading would only undermine a Manichaean design, light and darkness understood as polar absolutes. The lantern he had brought with him had marred that purity.

In an act of Manichaean faith, he opened the glass and blew out the flame.

It took him several minutes to accustom his eyes. Oddly enough, he began to feel a kind of comfort within the pitch-black, his body somehow less delimited, unobtrusive, more a part of the rock than an affront to it. No longer defined by the ring of light cast from his lamp, he could almost fade into the darkness, safe in its embrace-a growing respect for the Manichaeans’ subtle affinity for the two realms.

When the first hint of light did appear, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, not for the light itself, but for its location. Thin lines of white slowly formed along the ceilings of both corridors, threadlike streaks at perfect intervals, as if a hundred spiders had decided to weave one strand each of silk. Impossible to make out above the garish yellow of the lantern, they now glimmered pristine against a blackened backdrop. He moved out toward the first, brushing his fingers along the ceiling, the strip of light matching the topography of his hand. Cupping his fingers toward the side wall, he expected to catch the light in his palm. Instead, the beam disappeared. Only then did he see the light shining on his knuckles. Amazed, he turned toward the solid rock courtyard. The light was coming from in there.

At once, he began to trace his fingers along the topmost edge of the courtyard stone, only to find a pattern of tiny holes hidden within. Each time he covered one, another strand of web disappeared, reborn with the removal of his finger. He’d paid no attention to the giant hunk of rock situated at the center of the four corridors; now, he ignored all else. He lit the lantern and began to examine the fissured stone. Drawing up to within a few inches of the first hole, he discovered something far more provocative.

Etched into the wall was a disjointed collection of Greek letters, most of which lay hidden under a healthy layer of dust. Sweeping the grit away, he saw they combined to form a block of writing; on closer inspection, a verse from the Bible. Ephesians. The armor of God. Like the steps he had discovered in the monastery’s outer wall, the letters here had been carved with such ingenuity that they virtually blended into the contours of the rock. His adrenaline started to rise. A few feet down, another verse. This one Old Testament. So it went, around all four sides, no sign, however, of the simple invitation from Luke.

When he realized how stupid he had been, he nearly smacked himself on the head. Of course the verse from Luke wouldn’t simply be waiting for him. It, too, would be hidden in the text. Taking his lead from the “Perfect Light,” he scanned each of the verses again, this time searching for an acrostic. At the far end of the second wall, he came upon the letters hidden within a passage from Revelation, the irony not lost on him. Once more, he read the inscription from bottom to top:

He pulled back and surveyed the area around the verse. The rock face resembled a tiny mountain range, the cracks in the wall like rivers and streamlets crisscrossing its terrain. Lifting the lantern in a wide arc, he tried to locate some hint of a door in the fissures, but to no avail. No way through, no way over. A none-too-distant echo. With little else to go on, he ran his fingers along the lettering, unsure of what exactly it was he hoped to find. He took particular care with the word light, pressing against each of its letters as if one of them might miraculously propel him through the solid wall.

He wasn’t far off when, pushing at the last, he felt something give way, the miniature? burrowing deeper into the rock. A moment later, he heard the sound of releasing, an entire section of wall moving perhaps an inch backward, guided by some unseen hinge. Stepping back, he watched as a seemingly unconnected series of cracks- oddly etched beams-joined together to create the outline of a door. A remarkable piece of engineering. Muscling his shoulder into the rock, he pushed his way through.

The sudden spray of light from within-a milky white radiance far purer than anything he had expected-forced him to wince. It seemed to emanate from the walls, an undulating mass of flawlessly smooth stone. Directly in front of him, six steps led down to the floor, which reflected an equal luster, no less luminous than the arched ceiling above, the overall effect that of a cube of light dug deep into the rock. He made his way down, sliding his fingers along a nearby ridge of wall-cold, wet, tacky to the touch. It gave the impression of something primeval, as if it had been culled from the very soul of the mountain. Even when he noticed the real source of light-a group of torches placed at the far end of the sanctum-he continued to marvel at the stone’s effect. That the flames implied a recent visit from someone other than himself didn’t deter him. Instead, he concentrated on the torches, too dim to be producing the kind of light enveloping the space. Somehow, the walls, the floor, the ceiling were absorbing the torchlight and throwing it back with an added vibrancy.

Even from behind the six tapestries that hung along the four walls.

Putting the geological mystery to the side for the moment, Pearse drew up to the tapestry nearest him. Considerably faded-early medieval, his best guess-it appeared to depict the Ascension of Christ: a lamb asleep in the lower right-hand corner, angels flanking Him on both sides, more of the heavenly host above. Christ blessed them all as He rose, clouds parting before Him, His face and torso far rounder than one might have expected. More