Journey Into the Flame (11 page)

As Sebastian approached the house’s dramatic stone staircase, which led up to the front entrance, he was greeted by his most trusted assistant and longtime family butler, Lawrence. “Welcome home, Master Sebastian,” Lawrence said. It was a greeting Sebastian had heard many times in his life.

“Hello, Lawrence. Those words bring me a sense of peace that has eluded me for these past forty-eight hours.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I take it that things are not in order.”

“No, much is unsettled. Foes from the past have come forward, and they are wasting little time in reasserting themselves. Their presence has already been felt.”

“Yes, we were sorry to hear the sad news of Ms. Brown’s passing,” Lawrence said.

“Send the money we promised for the purchase of the
Chronicles
,” Sebastian instructed. “Even though the Council did not secure the books, I’m sure they could use it at this difficult time.”

“Very good, sir,” Lawrence said. “And what about the young man? Has he finished the restoration work? Is he safe?”

“No, he hasn’t yet completed his work on the painting. And no, I do not think he is safe,” Sebastian answered. “Let us pray that he unravels the mystery of the Michelangelo and the mystery of his own life.”

“Take to hope, Master Sebastian,” Lawrence said. “I am not sure what your parents would have said to you in a moment like this, but I am sure they would have advised you not to lose hope.” With a kind smile on his face, Lawrence took Sebastian’s hat and travel bag.

“You’re back!” a young woman cried, running down the curved marble staircase carrying an exquisitely crafted violin in her left hand and its bow in her right. “I’ve been devouring all those books you told me to read, and I have many questions,” she said, getting right to her point.

Sebastian greeted her with a kiss on the cheek.

“Your questions will have to wait,” Lawrence said, provoking a dissatisfied look from the girl, whose name was Anita. “Master Sebastian requires a respite after his long trip. Dinner will be served promptly at six-thirty. Sara is planning a wonderful meal.”

“Fine, I’ll wait until dinner, then,” Anita said with a touch of disappointment in her voice. She turned and ran back up the stairs, calling over her shoulder, “It’s nice to have you back, Mr. Quinn.”

“I have prepared the Tapestry Room for you, sir,” Lawrence went on. “A glass of wine awaits you there.”

“Thank you, my friend. You know what comforts me. And after dinner I will make use of the Arcis Chamber.”

“Very good, sir, I’ll see that it is prepared.”

Sebastian entered the Tapestry Room through a set of tall, hand-carved double doors. At the center of the room, a single high-backed leather chair and an old cherrywood table rested on an exquisite blue and gold Kashmir rug. The chair faced the picture windows on the north wall, which provided a view of the ocean and the eternal crashing of the incoming waves. The walls of the large room were adorned with artwork from the past, portraits of kings and queens, fragments of ancient wall paintings that depicted pharaohs and gods, religious icons, and paintings of battles and hard-fought victories. The west wall of the room was shelved with great books, both new and old. A grand fireplace sat idle in the southwest corner, a seasoned cord of wood neatly stacked next to it. The ceiling featured a great stained-glass dome, depicting six angels observing from the heavens and a seventh angel who seemed indifferent. It was called the Tapestry Room because it was said to contain the threads that linked a person to his past, not only to Sebastian’s own family history but to the history of mankind.

Sebastian walked to the center of the room and slowly lowered himself into the high-backed armchair. On the side table was a silver goblet, its interior lined with leafed gold. He picked up the goblet and read the familiar words engraved on it: “Destiny is a choice.”

Lawrence always seems to pick the right goblet for every occasion,
Sebastian thought as he inhaled the wine’s bouquet. He lifted the goblet to his lips and drank its contents in one swift motion. Then he set the empty goblet back on the table, leaned back in his chair, and took up his smoking pipe, which had already been prepared for him. Looking out the windows, he could see that the darkest clouds were almost upon the island. The recent events in Cairo, New Chicago, and
Washington, D.C., did not surprise him.
Men have been battling men since the dawn of time
, he mused. His mother and father had been in the middle of many such battles.

How can I do this myself?
Sebastian thought as he looked at the portraits of his mother and father hanging on the wall. Sebastian’s mother, Maria, had passed away fourteen years ago, and his father, Felix, died three years after that. Sebastian was alone, the last of his clan.

He reached over and picked up an old manuscript that Lawrence had placed there for him. It was titled
Enuntiatio de Tutela,
“Manifesto of the Guardians.” Passed down from generation to generation, its author and date of origin were unknown. Sebastian remembered his mother reading the sacred words to him in her gentle, calming voice. There was one particular passage he would always repeat after she’d finished reading it. Sebastian closed his eyes for a moment, remembering.

You who have chosen this path and promised to follow the

Enuntiatio de Tutela

will be taught great philosophies and precepts. Service to mankind must be done without condition and without expectation. Love and sincerity will be your only allies on this journey.

You must believe that those you teach will one day become your inspiration.

For when the initiate learns more as a teacher than he did as a student,

Then and only then

Can he be called

Master.

Sebastian’s deep contemplation was interrupted by the opening of one of the doors. The quick tapping of feet on the marble floor was followed by the loving kiss of Bukya, the German shepherd who had been with Sebastian since he was a puppy and enjoyed the run of the house. “I wondered where you were hiding,” Sebastian said as he set aside the ancient document and rubbed Bukya’s ears. “We have work to do, my friend. The world is in trouble, and it doesn’t realize it yet.”

9

Your technology has made you unaware of what is inside you. Beware of whatever stops you from understanding your natural ability. Beware of the artificial, for it is only a temporal thing.

—THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA

CHÂTEAU DUGAN, SWISS ALPS, 3:30 P.M. LOCAL TIME,

5 DAYS UNTIL FREEDOM DAY

Château Dugan was a large residence for one man. It was the only home Simon Hitchlords had ever known. Servants moved busily through the eighty rooms and countless hallways each day, working to keep the Château looking as regal as it had for centuries. The servants took great care to see that the Château was always ready for the next social or political reception—and for the next woman in Simon’s life.

Simon strived to maintain the high standards that his father had maintained, for it had been Fendral who had overseen the business of running Château Dugan. Simon’s mother hadn’t cared to involve herself in the day-to-day matters of running a home or in any of her husband’s and her son’s activities. Even after the Great Disruption, she had spent most of her time traveling abroad, trying to recreate the glittering social life that she and her privileged friends had once enjoyed. But the days of the old socialites had come to an end. So many of their peers had lost everything in the Great Disruption or to the governmental policies that had been instituted to stem the chaos.

Simon had always been close to his more practical-minded father. Fendral knew that the great families’ ascent back to the top would require a calculated strategy. He knew that a man could not just declare himself king; first, he had to create a common enemy and show the people that he had just conquered that enemy on their behalf. Even though Simon was young when he and his father served on the Council of Satraya, he’d learned a great deal about politics and how to fight a war without anyone knowing the battle had been joined. His father had referred to the strategy as the Peacemaker’s Bluff. “Don’t fight your battles directly,” he would say. “Find someone who hates your enemy more than you and manipulate them into confrontation. When the carnage is over, become the peacemaker. During the peace process, the opposing sides will welcome your leadership and all will be yours. Remember this, Simon.”

The loss of his father and mother in a car accident nine years ago had distressed Simon deeply. With no brothers or sisters, Simon had inherited everything—the Château and all of its priceless artwork and arcana, along with the entire Hitchlords fortune. Well, perhaps he hadn’t been all that distressed.

Sitting in his reading room, Simon browsed through the pages of a tattered blue journal. Its cover had the remnants of two bloody handprints, one smaller than the other. As he turned the handwritten pages, his eyes were drawn to the strange mark in the upper right corner.

Simon paused at places where pages had obviously been torn out. That bothered him.
Why were they torn out? What am I missing?
He couldn’t let it distract him. He kept turning the pages until he found the entry he was looking for, one he had read many times before.

December 24, 2033. It has been just over three years since I found the books in the forest. I am learning that they contain more veiled secrets than we’d thought. In addition to the printed words on the pages, I am beginning to see strange Old English-styled writings and symbols on the pages I’d at first thought were blank at the end of the third book. Symbols beyond the Fundamental Four. I haven’t told anyone, not the Council, not even Cassandra, although I suspect that she might also be seeing them. The Satraya Flame seems to be the key. If you truly begin to master the flame and then look at the pages, the hidden writings and symbols appear. These symbols are different as they seem to float on the page. They seem to hold the promise of something powerful and supernatural.

Simon paused for a moment and looked up at the crackling fire in the fireplace. He remembered watching Camden scribble in the journal during Council meetings. Simon’s father, Fendral, had attempted to browse through it one day, but Camden caught him and thereafter guarded the journal more closely. Simon looked back down and continued to read.

There are three blank pages at the end of Book III. Two of the pages have hidden symbols and writings on them. Combinations that look like “Be” and “Te” on the first blank page, written in the same Old English style. On the second, I’ve seen the word “Solokan.” It always appeared below a fragment of a solid line and an arc of some sort. The third page is still a mystery to me. It seems to have only a partial symbol and some scattered letters, among them clearly “m” and “o.” I don’t have the focus yet to see the complete symbol or decipher the words.

Tomorrow I am going to ask Deya and Madu if they are seeing hidden symbols in the final pages of the third volume in their sets. I am going to borrow their books for the night. I dare not ask Fendral.

When Simon had finished reading the entry, he closed the journal. He was not the first in his family to study the occult. Other Hitchlords men had studied many different doctrines, hoping to attain the powers they promised. After his parents died, at the urging of Andrea’s husband, Lord Benson, Simon had spent a great deal of time studying the history of his lineage and the activities of his forefathers. He also studied the esoteric works his family had secretly acquired, sometimes by questionable
means: books, papers, scrolls. Now Simon browsed through an old leather folder containing some of them. There was a handwritten letter dated March 18, 1882, which was purported to have come from the original collection of the Mahatma Letters, currently locked away in the British Museum. Of course, this letter had been appropriated before the six-volume collection reached the museum. The exquisite penmanship of the letter and the masterful strokes of the sage’s blue pen impressed Simon. He was particularly interested in the part of the letter that dealt with the power of symbols.

Regarding your question about symbols. The most direct answer to your query is an emphatic yes. Symbols do hold great and immense power. We must tread lightly here upon the subjects of images, marks, and motifs. There exists information that cannot be communicated by any language that you possess. It is only through proper inward study and contemplation that the secrets of the symbols are revealed. But rare is the person who can cleanly wield the power which is bestowed upon them. Therefore, we who guard them do not cast them before man carelessly. For in the wrong hands the symbols could unleash great harm upon our world.

The cross motif, of the venerable Yeshua Ben Yosef, is regarded as such a symbol. In our ancient span, it was revered as the Intersection of Man, where his journey from left to right intersected with his journey from lower to higher (excuse our words, for we possess not tongue to properly impart this mark). It depicted a standing man or woman with their arms spread open, welcoming that which was before them into their heart. It represented unconditional love, which could not be spoken but only experienced. We are saddened to see that it has been used for such vile subjugation over the last two of your ages. In the old ways, this is a mark to be embraced by all men and women for it applies to each equally.