The Sixth Key (15 page)

‘I’ve seen something like this before,’ Rahn
said, intrigued.

‘Here it says that it means: The sower, Arepo,
holds the wheels of work.’

‘“Arepo”? That’s not Latin?’

‘No, according to this book, that word has
never been deciphered.’ Deodat continued reading: ‘Magic squares have been
found in Italy dating back to the first centuries, both in Rome and in Lucca.’
He looked up. ‘You know, quite a few have been found here, in the south, as
well. At any rate, the book says that it was once a code used by the early
Christians to denote places of sanctuary, but it must predate Christianity
because one was found in the city of Pompeii, in an engraving preserved by the
volcanic ash of Vesuvius. It also says here that many believe it forms a kind
of esoteric puzzle.’

‘What have you got on ancient puzzles in your
library?’ Rahn asked.

‘Look under A, for ancient or R for Roman or P
for puzzles . . . take your pick. That damned woman!’ he murmured with
exasperation.

After some digging about, Rahn found that
Madame Sabine had placed a book under the first name of the author, a certain
Pitois. ‘Look, here’s a reference,’ Rahn said. ‘The Sator Square is also found
in Solomon’s Keys.’

Deodat’s ears pricked up. ‘The first grimoire
ever written?’ He returned to his shelves again, tapping on his chin as he
looked over them.

Rahn smiled. ‘Don’t tell me you have a copy of
it?’

‘Well, I’ve got two, actually,’ Deodat said
over his shoulder, with a certain smugness. ‘One in French and one in English
– doesn’t everybody have at least one?’ He took Les Clavicules de Rabbi
Salomon from the bookshelf with particular reverence, blew the dust from it and
turned the pages. ‘Here it is. What in the devil . . . !’

‘What is it?’ Rahn joined him by the shelf.

‘Look for yourself!’ He gave Rahn the book.

‘It’s the Sator Square, but now it’s in
Hebrew.’

‘Yes.’ Deodat took the book back. ‘This means
that the Sator Square not only has connections to the Roman and Christian mysteries
but the Hebrew ones as well. Now, here in this grimoire, the Pentacle of Saturn
displays the magic square, which Solomon relates to the Alpha and Omega, or
Christ as He is known in Saint John’s Apocalypse.

‘It also says here that the magic square can be
used not only for warding off adversaries, as a conjuration to repel Satan
– Retro Satan; but that one can also, by making a slight variation in the
words, use it as a prayer to invoke Satan – Satan, Oro Te. You see, this
is the interesting thing about grimoires – they can be used for good or
for evil.’

Clearly this thought prompted another because
he took himself to his bookshelves again, looking about feverishly.

‘What now?’ Rahn asked.

‘I have a book written by Éliphas Lévi, a man
you could call a “grey” occultist. It’s a book on magic rituals and it’s
somewhere in this infernal disorder.’

It took some time but he eventually found it.

‘Look, do you see this? Lévi speaks of the
word rotas, which is sator back to front. He says it’s connected to the tarot
and to cut a long story short, the tarot is connected to the Alpha and Omega
and Saint John’s Apocalypse. Over and over we are seeing a connection between
grimoires and the Apocalypse.’ He paused. ‘You know, Abbé Cros asked me for
this book years ago. He wanted to know something about the pope card. He kept
the book for many months.’

But Rahn wasn’t listening – inside his
mind two things were colliding to make a third. ‘So, Cros knew you would
understand what sator meant, that is obvious to me, and he must have wanted you
to find something connected to the grimoires and to the Apocalypse in the
church. Now it all makes sense. The church was full of symbols: plaques
depicting the Book of the Seven Seals – Saint John’s Apocalypse, on
either side of the altar; the Grail over the doors; and to top it all off, a
wheel of fortune in the stained-glass window, which is straight out of the
tarot. The wheel is a symbol for life and death, it turns one way towards death
and another towards a reversal of death.’

Deodat nodded. ‘The one who holds the wheel of
fortune is Christ, sator, the sower, or the cultivator. The crux, or tenet,
“what holds”, is the middle word, and it forms a cross at the centre of the
magic square. Do you see it?’ He pointed it out to Rahn.

‘So what in the church could be related to the
transformation of life and death and also to Christ, who died on the cross?’
Rahn asked.

‘Don’t you know, Rahn? The dead bread and wine
are brought to life magically by the priest who turns them into the living body
and blood of Christ. The sacrament is the result of a transformation of matter
into spirit and spirit into matter.’

‘Birth and death, the wheel! So, Deodat, where
are the transformed bread and wine kept in a church?’

‘What isn’t consumed during the mass is kept
in—’ He looked at Rahn. ‘Do you think he wanted us to find the
tabernacle?’

Rahn picked up the scent. ‘Where is it?’

‘In the altar, usually, but it’s no doubt
locked, and without a key . . .’

‘And yet, what better place could a priest
find to hide something?’

‘Yes, but Eva said that the sacristan had the
job of cleaning all the items used in the mass, and they are kept in the
tabernacle. Surely the abbé knew the sacristan might see it,’ Deodat said.
‘That is, before he committed suicide.’

‘I’d wager the sacristan didn’t jump from the
Pic de Bugarach, Deodat. I think he was pushed!’

‘Now you’re the one who is jumping – jumping
to conclusions. You know what they say about the ingenious: they are often
incapable of analysis because they get caught up in their own cleverness.’

‘And do you have any better ideas?’ Rahn said,
suddenly annoyed.

Deodat walked away, tapping his chin.
Eventually he turned around. ‘I’m afraid there’s only one way to test this
hypothesis: we have to go there and see for ourselves.’

‘Go where?’

‘To the church, to see if you’re right about
the tabernacle.’ He put his glasses in his pocket.

‘What? Now?’ Rahn was suddenly faced with the
consequences of his own cleverness.

‘If we’re going to break into the tabernacle,
it might as well be at night. Besides, it’s easier at night to detect whether
you’re being followed. I read that in a detective story. Come on, dear boy,
tempus fugit!’

‘But how do you propose to get into the
tabernacle without waking the entire township of Bugarach? Really, Deodat, it
doesn’t seem very practical to me, and I can see the papers now: “Respected
magistrate to appear in his own courthouse after being caught breaking into the
tabernacle of Bugarach church”.’

‘Nonsense! I could say I was conducting an
examination in relation to a suspicious case, as any magistrate has a right to
do.’

Rahn knew that once Deodat had made up his
obstinate mind there was no stopping him. And so he watched helplessly as his
friend slapped his black wool hat onto his head and put on his coat.

‘I don’t know what’s more fun,’ he said,
‘going off to do some hole-and-corner work in the night like a thief, or
watching your face pale when we go in and out of churches.’

Rahn drove back to Bugarach. The night was
cold and the moon that came out from behind the clouds to light the narrow road
was almost full.

He contemplated his mistake. He had allowed
himself to be seduced by the mystery and its connection to the Cathar treasure
and, in the fever of intellectual abandon, had forgotten the resolve he had
made earlier in the day – the consequences of which were now quite plain
to him: Deodat was becoming more deeply involved in this dangerous affair; and
he was not on his way to a hiding spot in the Pyrenees but on his way to a
church at night to break into a tabernacle.

It didn’t help that a part of him was enjoying
the hunt. To the contrary, his own excitement made that other part of him, the
sensible part, vexed because it knew that such a hunt would not end well for
either of them. And his mood was not lightened in any way by their arrival at
Bugarach. For if it seemed sad and ominous in the day, it was so many times
more foreboding now, with its silent houses and abandoned streets dominated by
the old volcano swathed in moon glow. Bugarach was no ordinary church, there
was something decidedly pagan and mysterious about it. It recalled to his mind
stories of those ancient sibyls who foretold the future by drinking in the
sulphurous fumes of volcanoes.

Rahn parked the car discreetly on a dirt
shoulder behind some low-lying bushes and together he and Deodat made their
quiet way to the church, past the graveyard, which on this cold night looked
windblown and secretive. Rahn steeled his heart as he made to open the door and
nearly jumped out of his skin when the rusty hinges groaned.

Deodat was in his ear. ‘Could you be louder,
Rahn? After all, not everyone in the township heard your announcement: Here is
the magistrate of Arques come to steal something from the church, wake up
sleepy-heads or you will miss it!’

‘Very funny, Deodat!’

Rahn concentrated on keeping calm and stepped
inside. Once across the threshold all his symptoms returned: his mouth was dry;
his hands trembled; sweat formed on his brow; and his knees weakened. He looked
about. The church seemed redolent of decay, the flickering candles made shadows
loom over the walls. Shadows and shadows of shadows created sinister demons of
those saints upon their high stations. His mother’s words rang in his ears.

Don’t
be afraid, Otto, there are only angels in churches
.

‘Yes, but are they good angels?’ he whispered
out loud,
making Deodat turn around.

They had made it to the choir enclosures
without Rahn passing out, which was a relief to him, and now Deodat showed him
the tabernacle. Rahn forced his mind to turn away from imponderables and
focused his thinking to the moment. The bronze box was built into the front of
the altar directly beneath the crucifix, whose hideousness was lit by a
perpetual flame. Rahn tried the lock. It wouldn’t give. He took a candle behind
the altar, which to him seemed less sinister than the front. He thought that
the sacristan or the abbé may have left a key here for convenience but he found
nothing more than a little bottle of oil, a box of matches and a couple of
dirty rags. He opened the matchbox – it was full of matches but no key.

Deodat whispered his name and Rahn placed the
matchbox absently in the pocket of his pants and went to him. Deodat was trying
to open the sacristy door under the Grail plaque but it was also locked. Rahn
went to the opposite door but he too had no luck.

‘What now?’ Deodat whispered harshly.

‘We have to break into it.’

‘How?’

Before Rahn could reply, they were interrupted
by a noise.

‘What in the devil is that?’ Deodat whispered.

Rahn, who was facing the length of the nave
towards the west, paused. The door was groaning. He brought out his old Swiss
Army knife, knowing it would be no use at all against a man holding a gun.
Without another thought he gestured for
them to move behind the altar.

The footsteps were slow, light and deliberate.

A small man, Rahn thought, was headed in their
direction. Whoever it was had already come past the enclosures. Rahn’s
breathing grew rapid. His heart was pounding. Had they been followed? Perhaps it
was the same person who had killed the sacristan, perhaps one of Serinus’s men,
or the inspector, or worst still the Gestapo . . . Who knew how many people
were after him by now? Another noise pierced the gloom – the sound of
metal against metal and a click that reverberated a little in the church.

Rahn understood. Whoever it was had opened the
tabernacle, not having yet reckoned their presence. He had to act now. The
element of surprise would give him an advantage. He figured he would come from
behind the altar, allowing the moment to dictate his actions and whatever came
after that, he did not dare contemplate. He looked at Deodat and pointed in the
direction of the altar, suggesting that they move to attack.

He sprang vigorously from his position in the
darkness into the space in front of the altar, his every muscle and sinew
straining into action. What came next was a blur of images and sounds: he saw a
figure in black, he heard a gasp and then something heavy came down and turned
night into day in a spray of stars. The ground then opened up beneath him and
he felt himself falling . . .

. . . he was falling into a fissure in the
volcano of Bugarach, redolent of sulphur and crowded with sibyls.