I had to relax. Ibreathed through my nose rhythmically, my breaths gradually deeperand deeper. This is how, under torture, you can make yourself loseconsciousness and escape the pain. And, in fact, I sank slowly intothe embrace of the Subterranean World.
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Our cause is a secretwithin a secret, a secret that only another secret can explain; itis a secret about a secret that is veiled by a secret.
¡XJa ¡¥far as-Sadiq,sixth Imam
Slowly, I regainedconsciousness, heard sounds; the light, now stronger, made meblink. My feet were numb. When I tried to get up, making no noise,I felt I was standing on a bed of spiny sea urchins. The LittleMermaid. Silently I stood on tiptoe, then bent my knees, and thepain lessened. Peering out cautiously, left and right, I saw thatthe sentry box was still pretty much in the shadows. Only then didI take in the scene.
The nave was illuminatedon all sides. There were now dozens and dozens of lanterns, carriedby new arrivals, who were entering from the passage behind me. Theymoved by on my left, into the choir, or lined up in the nave. MyGod, I said to myself, a Night on Bald Mountain, Walt Disneyversion.
They didn't raise theirvoices; they whispered, together creating a noise like a crowdscene in a play: rhubarb rhubarb.
To the left, thelanterns were set on the floor in a semicircle, completing, with aflattened arc, the eastern curve of the choir, and touching, at thesouthernmost point, the statue of Pascal. A burning brazier hadbeen placed there, and on it someone was throwing herbs, essences.The smoke reached me in the box, parched my throat, gave me afeeling of dazed excitement.
In the center of thechoir, in the flickering of the lanterns, something stirred, aslender shadow.
The Pendulum! ThePendulum no longer swayed in its familiar place in the center ofthe transept. A larger version of it had been hung from thekeystone in the center of the choir. The sphere was larger; thewire much thicker, like a hawser, I thought, or a cable of braidedmetal strands. The Pendulum, now enormous, must have appeared thisway in the Pantheon. It was like beholding the moon through atelescope.
They had re-created thependulum that the Templars first experimented with, half amillennium before Foucault. To allow it to sway freely, they hadremoved some ribs and supporting beams, turning the amphitheater ofthe choir into a crude symmetrical antistrophe marked out by thelanterns.
I asked myself how thePendulum could maintain its constant oscillation, since themagnetic regulator could not be beneath it now, in the floor. ThenI understood. At the edge of the choir, near the diesel engines,stood an individual ready to dart like a cat to follow the plane ofoscillation. He gave the sphere a little push each time it cametoward him, a precise light tap of the hand or thefingertips.
He was in tails, likeMandrake. Later, seeing his companions, I realized that he wasindeed a magician, a prestidigitator from Le Petit Cirque of MadameOlcott; he was a professional, able to gauge pressures anddistances, possessing a steady wrist skilled in working within theinfinitesimal margins necessary in legerdemain. Perhaps through thethin soles of his gleaming shoes he could sense the vibrations ofthe currents, and move his hands according to the logic of both thesphere and the earth that governed it.
His companions¡Xnow Icould see them as well. They moved among the automobiles in thenave, they scurried past the drai-siennes and the motorcycles,almost tumbling in the shadows. Some carried a stool and a tablecovered with red cloth in the vast ambulatory in the rear, and someplaced other lanterns. Tiny, nocturnal, twittering, they were likerachitic children, and as one went past me I saw mongoloid featuresand a bald head. Madame Olcott's Freaks Mignons, the horriblelittle monsters I had seen on the poster in the LibrairieSloane.
The circus was there infull force: the staff, guards, chores ographers of the rite. I sawAlex and Denys, les Geants d'Ava-lon, sheathed in armor of studdedleather. They were giants indeed, blond, leaning against the greatbulk of the Obeissante, their arms folded as theywaited.
I didn't have time toask myself more questions. Someone had entered with solemnity, ahand extended to impose silence. I recognized Bramanti only becausehe was wearing the scarlet tunic, the white cape, and the miter Ihad seen on him that evening in Piedmont. He approached thebrazier, threw something on it, a flame shot up, then thick, whitesmoke rose and slowly spread through the room. As in Rio, Ithought, at the alchemistic party. And I didn't have an agogo. Iheld my handkerchief to my nose and mouth, as a filter. Even so, Iseemed to see two Bramantis, and the Pendulum swayed before me inseveral directions at once, like a merry-go-round.
Bramanti began chanting:"Alef bet gimel dalet he vav zain het tet yod kaf lamed mem nunsamek ayin pe sade qof resh shin tau!"
The crowd responded,praying: "Pamersiel, Padiel, Camuel, Aseliel, Barmiel, Gediel,Asyriel, Maseriel, Dorchtiel, Usiel, Cabariel, Raysiel, Symiel,Armadiel..."
Bramanti made a sign,and someone stepped from the crowd and knelt at his feet. For justan instant I saw the face. It was Riccardo, the man with the scar,the painter.
Bramanti questioned him,and Riccardo answered, reciting from memory the formulas of theritual.
"Who areyou?"
"I am an adept, not yetadmitted to the higher mysteries of the Tres. I have preparedmyself in silence and meditation upon the mystery of the Baphomet,in the knowledge that the Great Work revolves around six intactseals, and only at the end will we know the secret of theseventh."
"How were youreceived?"
"Through theperpendicular of the Pendulum."
"Who receivedyou?"
"A MysticalEnvoy."
"Would you recognizehim?"
"No, for he was masked.I know only the knight of the rank higher than mine, and he knowsonly the naometer of the rank higher than his, and each knows onlyone other. And so I wish it to be."
"Quid facit SatorArepo?"
"Tenet OperaRotas."
"Quid facit SatanAdama?"
"Tabat Amata Natas.Mandabas Data Amata, Nata Sata."
"Have you
