“Calm yourself, my dear Pierre. I have had brought here, this night, a woman I consider the most exquisite incarnation of the Sophia, the mystic bond between the world of error and the Superior Ogdoad. Do not ask me how or why, but in her presence the man will speak. Tell them who you are, Sophia.”
And Lorenza, like a somnambulist, as if it were an effort to utter the words, said: “I am … the saint and the prostitute.”
“Ah, that is to laugh,” Pierre said. “We have here the crème de l’initiation and we call in a pute. No; the man must be brought immediately before the Pendule!”
“Let’s not be childish,” Agliè said. “Give me an hour. What makes you think he would speak here, before the Pendulum?”
“He will speak as he is undone. Le sacrifice humain!” Pierre shouted to the nave. And the nave, in a loud voice, repeated: “Le sacrifice humain!”
Salon stepped forward. “Count, our brother is not childish. He is right. We are not the police….”
“You of all people say this,” Agliè quipped.
“We are not the police,” Salon said, “and it is not fitting for us to proceed with ordinary methods of inquiry. On the other hand, I do not believe that sacrifices to the forces of the underground will be efficacious either. If they had wanted to give us a sign, they would have done so long ago. Another one knows, besides the prisoner, but he has disappeared. This evening, we have the possibility of confronting the prisoner with those who knew…” He smiled, staring at Agliè, his eyes narrowing beneath their bushy brows. “And to make them also confront us…”
“What do you mean, Salon?” Agliè asked, in a voice that showed uncertainty.
“If Monsieur le Comte permits. I will explain,” a woman said. It was Madame Olcott: I recognized her from the poster. Livid, in an olive garment, her hair, black with oil, tied at the nape. The hoarse voice of a man. In the Librairie Sloane I had recognized that face, and now I remembered: she was the Druidess who had run toward us in the clearing that night in Piedmont. “Alex, Denys, bring the prisoner here.”
She spoke in an imperious tone. The murmuring in the nave expressed approval. The two giants obeyed, trusting Lorenza to two Freaks Mignons. Agliè’s hands gripped the arms of his throne; he had been outvoted.
Madame Olcott signaled to her little monsters, and between the statue of Pascal and the Obeissante three armchairs were placed. On them three individuals were seated. The three were dark-skinned, small of stature, nervous, with large white eyes. “The Fox triplets. You know them well, Count. Theo, Leo, Geo, ready yourselves.”
At that moment the giants of Avalon reappeared, holding Jacopo Belbo by the arms, though he barely came up to their shoulders. My poor friend was ashen, with several days’ growth of beard; his hands were bound behind his back and his shirt was open. Entering the smoky arena, he blinked. He didn’t seem surprised by the collection of hierophants he saw before him; after the past few days, he was probably prepared for anything.
He was surprised, though, to see the Pendulum in its new position. The giants dragged him to face Agliè’s seat. The only sound was the swish of the Pendulum as it grazed his back.
Briefly, Belbo turned, and he saw Lorenza. Overwhelmed, he started to call her, and tried to free himself. But Lorenza, though she stared at him dully, seemed not to recognize him.
From the far end of the nave, near the ticket desk and the bookstall, a roll of drums was heard, and the shrill notes of some flutes. Suddenly, the doors of four automobiles opened, and four creatures emerged. I had seen them before, too, on the poster for Le Petit Cirque.
Wearing fezlike felt hats and ample black cloaks buttoned to the neck, Les Derviches Hurleurs stepped from the automobiles like the dead rising from the grave, and they squatted at the edge of the magic circle. In the background a flute now played sweet music, and the four gently put their hands on the floor and bowed their heads.
From the fuselage of Bréguet’s plane, a fifth Derviche leaned out like a muezzin from a minaret and began to chant in an unknown tongue, moaning and lamenting as the drums began again, increasing in intensity.
Crouched behind the Brothers Fox, Madame Olcott whispered words of encouragement to them. The three were slumped in their chairs, their hands clutching the arms, their eyes closed. They began to sweat, and all the muscles of their faces twitched.
Madame Olcott addressed the assembly of dignitaries. “My excellent little brothers will now bring into our midst three people who knew.” She paused, then said: “Edward Kelley, Heinrich Khunrath, and…” Another pause. “Comte de Saint-Germain.”
For the first time, I saw Agliè make a wrong move. Out of control, he sprang from his seat, flung himself toward the woman, narrowly avoiding the trajectory of the Pendulum, as he cried: “Viper, liar, you know that cannot be….” Then, to the nave: “It’s an imposture! A lie! Stop her!”
But no one moved except Pierre, who went up and sat on the throne. “Proceed, madame,” he said.
Agliè, recovering his sangfroid, stood aside, mingling with the others. “Very well,” he challenged. “Let’s see, then.”
Madame Olcott moved her arm as if signaling the start of a race. The music grew shrill, dissonant; the drumbeats lost their steady rhythm; the dancers, who had already begun swaying back and forth, right and left, as they squatted, got up now, threw off their cloaks, and held out their arms wide, rigid, as if they were about to take flight. A moment of immobility, and they began to spin in place, using the left foot as a pivot, faces upraised, concentrated, vacant, and their pleated tunics belled out as they pirouetted, making them look like flowers caught in a hurricane.
Meanwhile, the mediums, breathing hoarsely, seemed to knot up, their faces distorted, as if they were straining, unsuccessfully, to defecate. The light of the brazier dimmed. Madame Olcott’s acolytes turned off the lanterns on the floor, and now the church was illuminated only by the glow from the nave.
And the miracle began to take place. From Theo Fox’s lips a whitish foam trickled, a foam that seemed to thicken. A similar substance issued from the lips of his brothers.
“Come, brothers,” Madame Olcott murmured, coaxed, “come, come. That’s right, yes….”
The dancers sang brokenly, hysterically, they shook and bobbed their heads, they shouted, then made convulsive noises, like death rattles.
The stuff emitted by the mediums took on body, grew more substantial; it was like a lava of albumin, which slowly expanded and descended, slid over their shoulders, their chests, their legs with the sinuous movement of a reptile.
I could not tell now if it came from the pores of their skin or their mouths, ears, and eyes. The crowd pressed forward, pushing closer and closer to the mediums and the dancers. I lost all fear: confident that I would not be noticed among them, I stepped from the sentry box, exposing myself still more to the fumes that spread and curled beneath the vaults.
Around the mediums, a milky luminescence. The foam began to detach itself from them, to assume ameboid shape. From the mass that came from one of the mediums, a tip broke free, turned, and moved up along his body, like an animal that intended to strike him with its beak. At the end of it, two mobile knobs formed, like the horns of a giant snail….
The dancers, eyes closed, mouths frothing, did not cease their spinning, and they began to revolve, as much as the space allowed, around the Pendulum, miraculously doing this without crossing its trajectory. Whirling faster and faster, they flung off their fezes, let their long black hair stream out, and it seemed their heads were flying from their necks. They shouted, like the dancers that evening in Rio: Houu houu houuuuu…
The white forms acquired definition: one of them grew vaguely human in appearance, another went from phallus to ampule to alembic, and the third was clearly taking on the aspect of a bird, an owl with great eyeglasses and erect ears, the hooked beak of an old schoolmistress, a teacher of natural sciences.
Madame Olcott questioned the first form: “Kelley, is that you?”
From the form a voice came. It was definitely not Theo Fox speaking. The voice, distant, said in halting English: “Now … I do reveale a … a mighty Secret, if ye marke it well…”
“Yes, yes,” Madame Olcott insisted.
The voice went on: “This very place is call’d by many names…. Earth … Earth is the lowest element of all…. When thrice ye have turned this Wheele about … thus my greate Secret I have revealed….”
Theo Fox made a gesture with his hand, as if to beg mercy. “No, hold on to it,” Madame Olcott said to him. Then she addressed the owl shape: “I recognize you, Khunrath. What have you to tell us?”
The owl spoke: “Hallelu…’aah … Hallelu…’aah … Hallelu…’aah … Was …”
“Was?”
“Was helfen Fackeln Licht … oder Briln … so die Leut … nicht sehen … wollen …”
“We do wish,” Madame Olcott said. “Tell us what
