The 37th mandala : a novel (23 page)

"Evangeline was completely in possession of herself; there was no buried fear or neurosis, no guilt or unguarded pockets in her soul. Whatever means the mandalas used were forcible, unsubtle ones. Usually astral forces make their presence known to humans subtly, inducing thoughts, images, or voices. The nervous system is a network with many junctures, many synaptic points at which they may interfere and exert control. But for an astral organism actually to overtake a strong physical body is—or was—almost beyond my comprehension. Astrally, electrochemically, they began to work her like a puppet. My Evangeline, whom of all people I would have thought beyond their power. But then, I never understood what they were until too late; I never had a chance to underestimate them. That's why I take responsibility for her death. I exposed her to something she would never have encountered on her own, a risk she should never have taken.

"We were sitting here in the evening, just like you and me, waiting for the news to come on TV. All of a sudden, very quietly, she began to speak. I turned off the television to listen, but I needn't have, for her voice grew louder until it was no longer her voice at all, nothing recognizable. It told me things about myself that she couldn't possibly have known, secrets I had never revealed in our years of marriage; things more personal than dreams. It spoke of mysteries I had discovered for myself while traveling astrally in the far, ancient reaches of the universe, out near the hot walls of creation, things I had never told anyone, and which are described nowhere on Earth.

"At first, not knowing who spoke, I was amazed. But then she began to frighten me. I switched the TV to a blank channel and turned off the other lights; this gives the perfect radiance for viewing astral forms. After a few moments I perceived something floating above her like a dark crown, its myriad arms forming a cage around her face, some of its tentacles piercing her skull, her throat.

"You know the Voudoun term '
ma
î
tre 
à
 t
ê
te
'—'master of the head.' Each of us has a master, a
loa
or ancestral god who guides and protects him; they are like guardian angels, yet more specific than that. Their character reflects the character of the person they guard.

"It is thus with the mandalas. Each of the thirty-seven suits a particular temperament. The one that held Evangeline was foul beyond description. It was in every way her antithesis. Sickly yet powerful, with grasping palps, spotted with livid stains that glowed in astral colors that have no physical parallel, thank God. And its words were equally alien. Even when she used human speech, it was accented in such a way that to hear it caused me profound fear and nausea.

"Get out of her,' I told it. I used the fiercest banishings I knew, dispatched it to the great black hole at the galactic core. I invoked the Shemhamphorasch. But it did not recognize power in any of the forms of human religions; it paid my banishings no more mind than a bacterium. When finally it did leave her, it left for its own reasons; and as soon as it departed, another arrived. The first had been her particular 
ma
î
tre 
à
 t
ê
te
; this second was one of its kin. They were hungry, you see. They all wished to take a turn at my wife.

"All thirty-seven came through in that first night. One after another, they paraded through her body. I threw all my spells at them, without effect. Sometimes, by coincidence, one seemed to leave when I wished it. But there was always another after it. And another.

"They nearly drove me to madness in one night. I had never felt so helpless, not in a lifetime of physical confinement. Even my astral abilities were worthless in such a situation, since I feared leaving my body. Feared to examine my own aura in that revealing light. Feared that one of them was waiting for me out there, my own evil 
ma
î
tre 
à
 t
ê
te
, waiting like a huge sea anemone to tangle me in its tendrils the moment I drifted into the astral. There was danger enough in the physical world.

"My only peace came from knowing that Evangeline's awareness was extinguished while they controlled her. Apparently they could not tolerate any spark of humanity in their puppet while they were present. I didn't know where her awareness had gone, but I feared it was not pleasant; the vague memories she eventually carried back were nightmarish. She thought they were only bad dreams she'd had in the course of a night's sleep.

"Shortly after dawn, they left. They stayed on into the light as if to show me that the sun could not dispel them, then they let Evangeline collapse. Both of us slept most of that day right through and woke near evening, disoriented, but glad that it was over.

"And then, just after sunset, they returned. As they did the night after that, and the night after that. They ransomed her. Threatened me with the possibility of threat to her. Forced her to hold a knife at her own throat, while I sat here helpless to resist their instructions, which were simple enough, I suppose.

"I wrote, you see. They dictated through Evangeline, and I wrote down every word. It's all there, in those ledgers beside you.

"They wished to make themselves known. They wanted to begin a new age of relations with humanity. They were tired of anonymity and wished to leave their signature on the things they touched. Imagine maggots leaving graffiti in a carcass. Their ruthless greed and hunger—if one can even attempt to anthropomorphize them—were beyond comprehension. They wished to canonize themselves and force us to worship in a temple of decay. I was to be only the first of their unwilling apostles.

"I took dictation all night long. In the day, I tried to ask Evangeline about our sessions, but I couldn't make her understand what was happening. There was a wall in her now, one they had erected, one they hid behind when they weren't using her.

"That period of my life seemed endless, and although those were my last days with my wife, I cannot treasure them in memory. I was exhausted nearly to the point of death, but Evangeline herself was in perfect health. In fact, she had never seemed stronger or more cheerful. The mandalas induced in her a painful mockery of bliss, tormenting me with a semblance of health and happiness.

"I slept through the days. At first I tried to seek answers in the astral—but I had no strength for the travel, and I sensed the mandalas were always around me. Sleep was less a flight than a fall into a bottomless well. The astral substance turned thick as tar around me. None of my familiars could reach me through it. I found later that many of my old correspondents had died in those months, while I filled ledger after ledger with the revelations and invocations that overflowed from Evangeline like floods of poison. Even today, trying to speak one word of their language is enough to make me puke.

"Fortunately, they couldn't go on forever. You see, they had specific goals, no matter how endless it all seemed when I was their scribe and Evangeline their puppet. One day, without warning, they
did
finish.

" That is all for now,' my Evangeline said. She had never said such a thing before.

"I remember staring in disbelief as her eyes fluttered and her hands stirred in her lap. She looked at the clock and said, "Look at the time, Eli!'

"I couldn't believe it was over. I had grown accustomed to the monotony of their dictation. I wasn't sure what to do. It had been so long since our lives were our own.

"Evangeline was sitting right there, on the sofa. She looked ... afraid ... for the first time. As a parting gesture they must have returned her memory, shown her how they'd used her, so that her moments of freedom were a final torment, a cruel slap. As she reached out to me her eyes closed, and she crumpled and passed on.

"They had drained her like vampires. However many years were left in her naturally, they had fed on them, used them to fuel those nights of torture. They knew her limits to the most infinitesimal degree, and when she was no more use to them, they abandoned her.

"There was nothing I could do. Immediately I set out in my silver body to find her. I opened the western gate for her soul, but I could not find it. I sent up my prayers and went calling, looking everywhere, hoping that at least she had escaped the mandalas. There was no sign of them either.

"I never found her. What that means, I don't know. Perhaps her release was complete, and she found utter freedom. Or perhaps they never really let go of her, but dragged her along with them so swiftly that—

"But I can't bear to think of that.

"I never dreamed I would tell this story to anyone—not even to you, Derek. These things have no place in a book meant to ward off despair. But it was the central event of my life, though it shed a ghastly light on every other occasion. Now I know what forces rule us and what sort of world we live in. The thirty-seven are the wardens of our souls. And we ... we need have committed no crime to end up in their custody. It is nature's way. I often ask myself if I can live with that knowledge. But it is even worse to think of what awaits me when I die."

Derek fidgeted with the flaps of the box, more intrigued than ever by the contents of the ledgers, the designs on the skin—yet knowing that the old man would panic if he tried opening the box again. He casually thumbed open one of the black and red books and saw that its pages were densely covered with Eli's arthritic scrawl; the composition of these books must have been sheer torture. Some of the pages seemed to be commentary, written in English; others were gibberish, a meaningless succession of syllables. It must be phonetic transcriptions of nearly unpronounceable speech.

He opened the box wide enough to shove the ledgers back inside, weighing down the skin.

"I'll just put this back," he said.

Eli didn't seem to notice. He might have been off in the astral, still searching for Evangeline.

Returning to the other room, he found Eli slumped and snoring in his chair. The tale had taken a lot out of him. In any case, it was much later than he usually stayed.

He left quietly, drove home preoccupied, and scarcely slept; once he got up to play back the tape in its entirety. Derek was saddened by the story, but frustrated. There was so much madness mixed up in it that he couldn't be sure where it bordered on truth. Evangeline was dead, but what of the rest of it? An elaborate hoax, and if so—on whom? Had Mooney filled the volumes with his own occult inventions, hoping to give them credence by concocting a tale of demonic possession? Then why did he insist that Derek not publish this crucial part of his life story? Had Evangeline been the one to spin the web, deceiving her husband with her own ravings? And if so, how and why had she timed her death so cunningly?

No explanation made any sense to Derek. He thought Elias Mooney was a man of honor, however fantastic his beliefs. He was not deliberately deceitful.

The next morning, he called and asked Eli if he could visit again. The old man was anxious for his return.

"We left a great deal undone yesterday," Eli told him when he stepped into the house. His eyes were bright, his cheeks flushed; he seemed in the grip of fever. 'T fear I've told you too much, and out of turn. There were things I should have done before dragging you into all this. I should have made sure of your own protection. I'm afraid you share some of my personal risk at the moment."

"Don't worry about that," Derek said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice.

"I think, in answer to your earlier request, that a certain ritual is in order now," Eli said. "I wish to bring you into my spiritual lineage—so that you can receive the protection of my guides and guardians. I should have done this sooner, I realize now; until you are properly initiated, the information I passed to you is all ungrounded. We must make sure it finds its proper path. The last thing we want is to create more unfocused channels for the mandalas' power. ..."

"I'll be happy to participate in any rite," Derek said.

"Very good. First, we must ensure your purity." He wheeled uncertainly back and forth in a small space, thinking. "I feel that something more than the ordinary precautions are called for." Derek wondered about this, but he was on Eli's turf now and not about to argue. He must appear to know already, or he would learn nothing. "More than salt. More than smoke."

"I agree," Derek said knowingly.

"In short, my boy, I'm afraid you need work."

Derek felt the mood take a creeping turn toward shattering. He must prevent it, somehow.

"I realize that," he said. "Why do you think I've come to you?"

"Then," Eli said darkly, "you have no master?"

Derek bowed his head. He wished he could have studied the old man's face, but the moment demanded humility and the appearance of deepest shame. "I thought it was obvious."

"Hm, and so it was," Eli said. "Raise your head. Look me in the eye."

He did so. Eli struck out with his hand and laid the palm on Derek's brow—a potent blow that never exactly touched him. "It is not the student's fault when he cannot find a master. I sensed in your books that you were still searching."

"I always consoled myself with one thought," Derek whispered. "Every text promises that the devoted student shall one day find his master. Until then I tried to behave as if my master was with me unseen."

"You were quite correct: That brings the invisible teachers, and it is they who guided us together."

"I'm afraid I'm not worthy of... of your instruction, Elias."

"These are matters of great significance, it is true. But it is not me who will judge your worth. Prove your sincerity and the rest will follow."

"What do you want me to do?"

"You are already doing it," Eli said, and Derek realized that he had been staring Eli in the eyes, unblinking, since the moment he'd raised his head.

Eli said, "I see you in a field, among hills."

"What do you mean, you see me?"

This was too much like hypnosis. He had lost track of himself, and it frightened him. He wasn't supposed to lose control like this. He hadn't yet been sucked into Eli's web; he'd always managed to stay detached with his tape recorder spinning. It was not spinning now.