Temple of The Grail (29 page)

‘Sorcery, master?’

‘I suppose it is,’ he said, and then,
seeing that I was about to drop the object in my horror, he steadied my hand. ‘Don’t
be a goose, Christian!
Mon dieu
! It is most delicate, and may indeed be
the only one of its kind on the continent. Although it may be a kind of
sorcery, it is also a wonderful one, invented by the Arabs . . . It was a
present given to me by a great Saracen convert . . . an Islamic scientist who
credited this knowledge to the courts of Haroun al Rashid.’

‘But are we in peril of our souls,
master?’

‘I shall tell you quickly how it
works and you will see that it is merely scientific. A strange stone,’ he said,
‘whose curious properties are not known, is passed over the metal of the
needle. The needle, in turn, is said to acquire the same properties as the
stone. After this the needle will always seek the northerly direction by
pivoting on its axis.’

I was thoughtful, turning it around
many times. ‘I see, that explains the markings denoting east, south and west.
No matter which way you turn it, the needle always points to the north and in
this way one may know in which direction one is travelling.’

‘Very good!’ I believe he was proud
of me.

‘Then it is a marvel!’ I cried,
elated at this interesting discovery.

‘It may help us. It seems to work
this far below the ground. Do not lose it now!’ he admonished.

Presently, Eisik held the lamps high
above us and my master pushed the door to our left. We were surprised to find
that it opened easily onto what looked like more steps, and to my great relief
revealed no terrible creature. My master moved forward, preparing to descend
ahead of us, when something stopped him abruptly. He shone his lamp into the
void.

‘
Mon Dieu!
‘ he exclaimed in a
whisper, ‘there are three steps and then . . . nothing!’

‘By the blood of all the tribes!’
Eisik murmured.

‘Where does it go, master?’

‘Down, and so would you or I or
Eisik, had we descended those steps in haste.’ He pulled the door closed and
moved to the other. It too opened in the same way, but this time led down some
steps to solid ground. My master went through first, then Eisik, mumbling
prayers, with me going down last. I held the little stone the abbot had given
me in one hand – for it was fast becoming a kind of amulet – and
the compass and articles in the other as I proceeded down the perilously steep
steps. Before I let go of the door, I was assailed by a terrible rank odour,
and I sneezed. This, in turn, caused me to lose my footing and I let go of the
stone, dropping it behind me as I fell the entire length of the stairs.
Luckily, the bones of the young are supple and strong, and I did not fracture
any part of me. I did, however, have a graze on both my hands, though somehow I
had managed to hold on to the compass. Eisik helped me to my feet, at the same
time inspecting me for any sign of injury. My master, now at the top of the
stairs, called to us in a relieved voice, ‘Thank the armies of God and all His
angelic hosts!
Mon ami
, your sneeze has saved us!’

I collected the parchment and
charcoal and made my way painfully up to where my master stood, and there I saw
the meaning of his words. The little gemstone had landed between the door and
the stone frame, wedging itself there and effectively preventing it from
closing. My master pointed to a spot on the edge of the door. ‘Look here,
Christian, this is the mechanism.’ He showed me a metal device attached to the
frame where it met the wall, pointing then to a hole in the wall in which this
device resided when the door was closed. ‘You see? Because of this apparatus
one is able to push the door open from the other side with ease. On our side,
however, there are no handles, and one is unable to pull the door open because
it is perfectly aligned with the wall. Had you walked through, allowing it to
close behind you, we would not have been able to open it again! Now what Daniel
told us about these tunnels becomes clear: there are many entrances, and only
one exit.’

‘But master,’ I said, now thoroughly
afraid, ‘these tunnels may continue infinitely, and we are bound to come across
a trap that we shall not be able to anticipate.’

‘Infinite qua infinite,’ my master
said because at that moment he chose to despise generalities. ‘This is
impossible. This labyrinth cannot be indefinitely long, for what is infinite in
multitude or size is unknowable in quantity, and what is infinite in variety of
kind is unknowable in quality, and so on and so on . . . The earth itself is
not infinite, on this all men of learning agree. And if the earth is finite,
one of its components cannot be infinite, but must also, following this rule,
be finite. It is a simple matter of logic . . . as is the fact that a thing
cannot be knowable in all its parts and at the same time be unknowable in its
whole.’

Eisik had been muttering prayers, but
not one for ignoring a chance to refute my master, he responded, ‘The sages
(men who have been known to hold infinity in their hands, and who create being
from nonbeing) tell us that we may see the tail of a lion beneath some bushes
and mistake it for a snake, Andre, or a snake mistaking it for a lion’s tail.
Knowing a small part does not always lead to knowledge of the whole. To know a
half circle we must know the circle.’

‘Yes, yes, but firstly, to hold
infinity in one’s hand,’ my master said annoyed, ‘is to know its quality and
its quantity, in which case it is no longer infinite, but finite. Moreover,
dear Eisik, Aristotle tells us, everything that is manifest must arise either
from what is, and as it is impossible for a thing to arise from what is not (on
this all physicists agree),’ he said, ‘things must then come into being out of
things that exist, that is out of things already present, but perhaps
imperceptible to our senses.’

‘You see even your dear pagan
believed in invisible things!’

‘Yes. But because we cannot see a
thing, Eisik, does not make it invisible,’ my master corrected. ‘Perhaps if we
had smaller eyes, or indeed larger ones, we might see the eternal element that
underlies everything.’

‘You mean eyes that are able to
perceive the spirit,’ Eisik ended, triumphant.

‘Yes that is what I mean, however I did
not say that to know a part is to know the whole, I meant that it may be the
sign that points to an idea which surfaces in one’s mind as an image which in
its purest state may lead one to the full reality of a thing, whether it is
something spiritual or material . . . but that is another matter, and we
diverge further and further, as we are apt to do when discussing the blessed
laws of physics . . . However, in this case when a whole consists of a
substance divided into parts and we have learnt some of the parts we can then
surmise the substance, ergo, one chamber of the labyrinth may help us to
construct the rest. Now, let us proceed and have no more of this talk!’ my
master ended the conversation abruptly. Perhaps he too had become confounded?

‘By God, I long for an apple,’ he
said.

‘So if this tunnel is finite,’ I
said, trying to use his logic, ‘it stands to reason that we must one day reach
the end, and so find our way out, master, is that not so?’

He smiled, and I was heartened, ‘Just
as surely as these tunnels have a quality,’ he said, ‘they also have a
quantity. Just as they have a beginning, they have an end! Whether we find this
end, or wander about until our death, is another matter. This unfortunately is
the logic of labyrinths which is all together different from any other kind of
logic.’

Eisik moaned. I was fast becoming
suspicious of logic. However I must not dull your mind, dear reader, with the
discourses that ensued as my master helped me to begin constructing a plan of
the tunnel and chamber. I will continue, rather, by telling how some time
later, after we retrieved my little gem, seeing that it had not broken, we left
a rock in the way of the door, so that it could not close, and found ourselves
back where I had so gracelessly landed.

Seeking the way in a downward slope,
not knowing what lay before us, I began to feel exceedingly cold and tired and
it was in this mood that I recalled the reading in the warming room the
previous evening.

‘A man should keep himself in every
hour from the sins of the heart, of the tongue, of the eyes, of the hands and
of the feet! He should cast aside his own will and the desires of the flesh; he
should think that God is looking down on him from heaven at all times, and that
his acts are seen by God and reported to him hourly by his angels.’

Those words now pierced my heart
profoundly, as though they had been somehow intended for me. But I knew that
this was illogical. The service had been prior to my dream and how could
Brother Setubar have foreseen my misfortune? It was impossible. And yet I also
reminded myself that I had not as yet confessed my indiscretion. My master did
not have the power to give me absolution as laid down in the rule by St
Bernard. Only under extreme circumstances, such as in times of war, or the
absence of a priest, could a Templar confess his sin to another. I wondered if
my master considered this a time of war where secrecy must prevail? I felt a
deep and powerful guilt seize me, and still I could not forget the beautiful
girl in my dream whose voluptuous limbs entwined with mine in a sin most foul,
and yet most sweet. Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be
burnt? Reason, my master so often told me, is the natural revelation of truth,
so I tried to use its power to release me from my sorrow. Is a monk deemed
worthy if he abstains only from physical love I asked myself as we walked the
long, narrow passage, or is love of the mind as sinful as its twin? If God was
omnipotent, as the Apostles inform us, and resides in our every thought, He
must also reside in our dreams! If this is so, I sighed dismally, He must not
be well pleased with me. And yet, how can one be held responsible for the
ruminations of one’s mind? Are not dreams independent of the will? And then I
immediately concluded that if my dreams were truly prophetic, as they had been
up until that moment, I would experience in my waking moments what I had
dreamt, and so, as a result, I would commit my sin twice! I told myself perhaps
one’s life of dreams is not prophetic at all, but merely the product of one’s
waking life, in which case all I had to do to redeem myself was confess, but
what a confession it would be! I shuddered, for the passage deep in the ground
was a reflection of my own sad soul, and I wondered if even with numerous
formulas handed down by the wise fathers a monk finds himself unable to control
evil lusts, what other recourse is there left to him?

Eisik peered at me in the gloom,
perhaps seeing on my face a sign that inside my belly there had been a fire (so
like the infernal fires of hell) that a man feels when in waking life he is
flushed with a lustful fever. I blushed immediately, and looked down,
pretending to be consulting the compass. In reality I was thinking that if I
did not at once admit my transgression I would soon expire from guilt.

It was while I was consumed by such
considerations that I noticed we were coming upon another door. Once more we
found ourselves inside a second antechamber, identical to the one we had just
left. Three doors again were set at oblique angles marked with signs. This was
the Pergamos chamber denoted by a crescent moon.

I noted everything that I saw down on
our little map, with the small piece of charcoal.

‘What now?’ I asked perplexed, trying
to keep my mind from wandering.

‘And he that overcometh, and keepeth
my works, unto the end, to him I’ll give power of the nations,’ Eisik said,
pointing to the door on our left, ‘Thyatira’.

This aperture opened in the same
manner, but this time there was no devilish device. It led directly to a deep
tunnel whose pitch again descended down a slight slope. The light from our
lamps reached up as far as the height of two men and after an oblique turn to
our left we walked a little distance and my master pointed to an area in the
wall of the cavern high above our heads.

‘The false door in the second
chamber!
Mon Dieu!
‘ my master exclaimed, his voice echoing in the
dampness. ‘You see there!’ he pointed, and I could just make it out. ‘We have
been ascending and descending, there have been steps and inclines, it appears
that these interconnecting tunnels twist and wind their way beneath and above
each other! Ingenious!’

Ingenious indeed! We continued ahead,
in a south-easterly direction, the tunnel becoming quite narrow and low, we were
walking beneath the chamber of the sun or Smyrna. I noted this down. We made
another oblique turn then, and the compass read north-east as we came upon
another chamber. Again we were faced with three doors. Above the one directly
ahead of us, we could see the strange symbol for Mercury and the word ‘Sardes’.
This was also above the door to our right. Behind us, as we expected, Pergamos.
To our left Ephesus, so this meant that we had travelled in a kind of figure
eight pattern, although on different levels. My master cupped his beard in his
hand and viewed my plan of the labyrinth thus far.

‘Now, Christian,’ he said, looking
around him, ‘if you look closely at your map, you will see a pattern emerge.
The door through which we enter the chambers is always marked with the name of
the preceding chamber. Above us we have the chamber we are presently in. There
are always, to this point, two doors marked with the same symbol, in order to
trick the unwary, but they may not be the same doors every time. In any case we
must now take the door marked Mercury, and if I am not mistaken, it is the one
facing east,’ he concluded.