The Whispering Swarm (10 page)

‘It's there, in your own mind, ordered and prepared since you were born. The dark aether flows there as it flows between the worlds. You need to find it. Most of us have it. An instinct requiring a discipline. An inherited ability. A divine gift. Which, of course, are the same. By means of it you travel easily between our world and its peers. Something which is far harder for us to do, but easy for you once you discover your instinctive discipline.'

‘My discipline?' I asked. ‘And yours?' I
was
dreaming. Caught in his spell. Fascinated. I wondered briefly again about drugs.

‘I suppose I have more than one. By reason of my work, you know. My real love, because it reveals so much of God's plan, is more sophisticated. But here…'

He stood up and touched something under his desk. ‘I believe the prince will eventually wish to show you his larger and more sophisticated version.'

Who was the prince? The same as the Green Knight?

I watched the leaves of the desk's top fold back on silent hinges and disappear into the body. A vast, blooming flower. Slowly he turned an invisible crank. I had only once seen anything like it, at the Royal Eise Eisinga Planetarium in Friesland, the Netherlands. An orrery from the mid-eighteenth century. But this was far more complex. From the interior, unfolding on subtle hinges, rose an extraordinary, complicated network of silver wires, slender steel rods, delicate brass cogs and golden spindles, expanding until it seemed to fill the room. Like a mad, joyful clock it vibrated and spun, clicked, chimed and whirred! Then at last it lay before me in silence. How old was it? An orrery, but of such extreme complexity I could not begin to see all it represented, certainly not the sun, moon and planets. Yet there were many spheres of different metals and size. I was fascinated. Delighted. Technically, building the thing was just about within the possibility of, say, seventeenth-century ingenuity. But the skill displayed was astonishing. It was worthy of Leonardo. I was mesmerised by its complexity. I stared unthinking into its rods and cogs, which were spinning and whirling in impossible intricacy.

On the other side of that extraordinary web I saw the beaming face of Father Grammaticus as he reached into the orrery, passing his long-fingered hands to and fro. ‘We enjoy certain privileges in the Abbey of the White Friars of Alsacia. Men come here to exchange knowledge as well as to reaffirm their faith in our Creator. The scholars of Arabia. Of Jewry. Of Europe and Africa. Since 1241 we have enjoyed an existence which has been mostly peaceful. According to our charters, everlasting and inviolate, made by those holy monarchs Henry III—in whose name we repent the special Sin of the Christians—and James II of England—in whose name we repent the Sins of the British, we offer sanctuary to all persecuted sinners in the name of our Creator and His prophets.'

‘What—?' I wasn't sure what was happening. I certainly did not feel as bad as I had done when I first turned up, though. My mouth was dry. I had trouble focusing. Again I wondered if Father Grammaticus hadn't put something in my tea! ‘The Creator? The Sanctuary? You believe what?—That this is a model of Creation?'

‘A simplified one, yes.'

‘Nothing bothers you about it?'

‘Why should it?'

‘You don't feel nauseated? Nothing affects your chest or stomach? You have no pains?' Looking at it was affecting my eyes as well. ‘Dizzy? Weak?'

‘Not any more. The Black Aether has that effect, I'll admit. The prince's Cosmolabe attempts to represent the Black Aether. The cosmic fog, as it is called. I can represent it but I lack the resource to commission such a superb machine. He had his choice of the world's great instrument makers. Ours relies on more local ingenuity. It is only a crude attempt to represent the cosmos we have explored.'

‘Excuse me, Father Abbot, but I still don't know exactly what this is.' I was mesmerised by the rods and webs and spheres. ‘Or, indeed, who the prince is you're talking about.' I was beginning to feel a bit scared, thinking in terms of black-magic cults and human sacrifices. Had I been lured here for a purpose? Would the
News of the World
be running pictures of my strangely twisted body in next Sunday's edition?

‘On the other side of the Black or Second Aether is what is sometimes termed the Third Aether. We call ours the First or White Aether purely in order to make some rough plan of the heavens. There are seven other known planes or branes, depending upon your choice of model. Our orrery shows a simplified model of Heaven and Earth, which, of course, seems far more complex than the one you know from your lessons. In Prince Rupert's model the Black Aether is represented. It begins to explain certain mysteries. As I said, we call ours the White Aether, but there are thought to be five other colours. Some report a blue aether and others a yellow. If we reach seven with anomalies still recurring, we shall assume further branes.'

I was still transfixed by this particular wonder, his Cosmolabe. Not only had I never imagined anything like it, I had never seen or read about anything like it! And yet it looked so ancient! The abbot's voice had become just then simply music soothing me as my brain tried to grasp the idea of a universe utterly alien to anything I had been taught. I was sure this would interest Barry Bayley, who was fascinated by weird theories and inventions. A little part of me was already working out how to use the idea in a story. Father Grammaticus was still apologising because the prince's orrery, once complete, would be so much more sophisticated than the abbey's. ‘But ours serves to demonstrate the fundamental universe. Also the movement of Radiant Time. So!' He passed his hand carefully between the various moving parts to show me golden wires spreading outwards from the base. He opened his fingers. The golden rays fanned out from them. His hand was the trunk, his fingers the branches. The orrery represented both models. The natural and the geometric. Or so I guessed. By now I was almost entirely without conscious thought, as if I were entranced by some perfect piece of music.

Father Grammaticus's soothing voice continued to stroke the webs and strings, making them vibrate. He had the air of playing a complex instrument. ‘Not only does this model show the movement of God's Creation,' he explained, ‘it also allows us to measure the passage of all the worlds, visible and invisible, including what we sometimes call the half worlds, or ghost worlds, through time. Indeed the whole aether is, as the prince proves by his mathematical logic, a dimension of time. Time and space follow the same laws and enjoy a similar condition.'

Later it would take a lot of discussion with Barry Bayley and others to reconstruct what Father Grammaticus told me. To this day, in spite of all the experience and knowledge I've gained, I still have trouble understanding that astonishing math. It takes a special kind of mind to imagine two models at once and navigate through them, as Father Grammaticus did. But I was losing the thread, through no fault of his explanation. The whirling and twining of the so-called Cosmolabe was making me feel pretty weird.

I hoped I could reach a bathroom before I lost it.

‘It's impressive.' I tried to stand up. Then I tried to remember why I wanted to stand up. The Cosmolabe still had my attention.

I was desperate to hold on to familiar beliefs. They had been reached logically enough and with quite a bit of effort. But my hard-won reason was melting before everything I was now learning. Was my physical state merely an echo of my mental turmoil? I think if I hadn't read a bit of science fiction I would have gone completely nuts trying to understand it all.

The slender gold, brass, steel and silver wires shivered delicately. The rods swung so gracefully, the cogs connected to the wheels, the regulators to the springs. Spheres circled other spheres. What had this to do with me? What had Friar Isidore seen in me which made him bring me here? And why was the old abbot so keen to show me this weird invention?

‘Are you—is this—?' I could get no closer than that to framing a question. The abbot took pity on me and smiled: a teacher happy to help a curious pupil. ‘Who is it for?' I think I meant to ask him
what,
but he seemed to understand.

He made an expansive gesture. ‘It is for everyone who needs it. Are we not all part of the same brotherhood?' Did he mean himself and the monks, or the monks and the Alsacian congregation, or the entire human race? ‘Aren't we all presently drifting in troubled waters? Once the scale of the Creator's plan is known and our power is recognised we shall understand its function thoroughly. Do you know what it is?'

The orrery was still mesmerising me. I was reminded of a description I'd read in the H.G. Wells novel. My eyes were transfixed. ‘It's some sort of time machine, isn't it?'

He smiled again. ‘Oh, if life were so simple! It's merely a model. As I said, it lacks the refinements of the prince's great orrery. But you can imagine the light sphincter and how it works to draw and expel the ectoplasm creating a perfectly balanced cosmos. We cannot begin to demonstrate here the suggestion, as yet unpresented in any coherent way, concerning the infinity of such objects of balance and the meaning of Scripture in their respect.'

‘Scripture?' I was growing dizzy again. I leaned back in my chair. Now even the whizzing spheres and weaving rods were hard to distinguish.

‘Believe me,' he said, ‘you must not fear that we are practising the black arts. We take our plans from Scripture. We know too much to want to meddle in those. We are trying to save all we value. No soul was ever sold here. No bargain was ever struck between man and devil. The only bargains we make are honourable.…' His voice now seemed indistinct. ‘And they are usually with the Creator or His agents in the best accomplishment of His will.'

I missed much of the meaning of what he said. I tried to rise. I still found it difficult to get up from my chair. I sat down again. He had changed the subject. ‘No doubt she loves you as much as she ever did.'

‘Who loves me?'

The old man frowned and glanced around him, puzzled. ‘Ah. I am so sorry. Your mother?'

But I knew he didn't mean my mother.

‘The prince knows a better method but this gives a certain verisimilitude to our model.' He reached in and sprinkled something into the elaborate mechanism. ‘This will help you understand why we were so glad you came to us all those years ago.'

I was absolutely baffled. ‘What do you mean, Father? I came here a few hours ago, at your invitation. Out of curiosity. And before that…'

He was hardly listening. His expression was wonderfully benign. ‘Your curiosity helps you see the roads. Soon you'll learn to walk them. The time is upon us. Those hunters have increased the frequency and intensity of their attacks. We have to get our Treasure to a safer place. The Green Knight cannot. His prophet needs him. So you shall help us.' His voice seemed to come from some distance off. I wanted to ask more but the beautiful machine drew my attention. Darkness flowed through the Cosmolabe forming shapes I almost recognised. I feared I was being hypnotised.

Time passed quickly and, in spite of feeling increasingly ill, I remained sitting, transfixed in front of that astonishing arrangement of gold, brass, ebony, silver, platinum and ivory. I watched clusters of crystals, some like diamonds, others like rubies, emeralds, sapphires. I peered deeper into the thing. I saw shapes, faces. I had no power to move and I didn't care. I was helpless. I thought I heard another, drawling voice. Perhaps I was imagining the entire experience. Was this astonishing concoction of alchemy and baffling cosmic theory actually created to reach deep into my inner self? Must I believe I owned a soul before I could see it at all?

I tried to break the connection by imagining the tarot deck until all I saw in my mind's eye were the cards. The swords and the cups, the wands and the pentacles became webs and rods and planets and suns whirling before my eyes.

I still heard Father Grammaticus's faraway voice speaking to me.
Radiant Time,
he said.
The Black or Second Aether
.
A greater darkness lies within the familiar darkness of the void.
‘Here the black sun sits, drawing us all into its insatiable orbit. But on the other side of that sun are the antiworlds thrown out by a blazing light bursting fresh. And so it turns, throughout Creation! The Great Galliard!' There were so many kinds of light: crystalline, fiery, gaseous, sharp. He passed his hands through the orrery again. I felt powerless to look at his face. I saw the Queen of Pentacles dancing with the high priestess and the emperor dancing around the sun. I saw the King, Queen and Knight of Swords form a circle. And in the middle of all was the fool. The fool, poor Pierrot, who had let his Columbine dance off with her Harlequin.

The black energy pulsed and coiled between the stars. The silver threads arced and twisted making impossible connections. Heavy drops of blood fell like summer rain. Huge shadows spread to obscure a mass of suns. I was in agony. My sickness had become an intense burning sensation. I did all I could to shrink it and rid myself of it.
Mass is present but invisible, explained by the presence of identical worlds unseen by us. They nest, one inside the other. Frequently, the only clue we have is the Dark Flow! Step this way, then that,
between
the worlds. Step and step. So and so. You dance the Great Galliard!

He was teaching me something through hypnotism? Was I learning what he wished me to learn? Should I have listened better? Perhaps if I had been in a different situation I would have done. My new interest in Moll Midnight kept me involved. I felt all this had something to do with her. The science involved was over my head! Was it time I turned to Harlequin in pursuit of my love? I was crying hard now. I gave no further attention to Father Grammaticus. Silver roads? An illusion? Still crying I stood up. I tried to shake my head to rid it of all the images. I closed my eyes. Began to sway. It felt like dying.