Oracle (14 page)

When it became known that the conjurer had used uncanny power to summon the Devil Wind in order to defeat our ships, His Majesty determined that ere another campaign be sent forth, the conjurer’s power must be broken. It would not suffice to kill him, for another would surely take his place. No, rather it would be necessary to cut him off from the source of his devilish power, and this we were sent forth to do.

It became known to us that the conjurer had left England and for some years had been traveling on the European continent in order to further expand his knowledge of the Dark Arts. We learned however that his collection of books and many tools with which he performed acts of divination had been left behind in his mansion on the shores of the River Thames.

When Alvaro and I arrived, we learned that the house had already been burglarized and many books and possessions taken, but among the items that remained was an orb of flawless crystal. Alvaro, whose education surpasses mine, likened it to the Eye of the Grey Sisters, though when I asked, he merely told me that it was an old story about witches.

It is difficult, even now, to write of what happened next. This was, I see now, the first of my sins. I touched this strange orb, this Eye, and I saw….

I count this a sin of Pride and not of witchcraft, for I did not seek intercourse with the Devil. I must have believed myself immune to such seductions. I make no defense or excuse, but only ask for the Lord’s merciful judgment.

I know only that I felt drawn to one of the manuscripts in the conjurer’s library, a book that was written in a strange language that was plain to me when viewed through the crystal Eye!

I cannot relate now all that I read that day. I will say only that the manuscript told of a vision, which the conjurer attributed to an Angel (what blasphemy) named Orphaniel, of a far off land and a great court where orbs of crystal and stone circled each other in an endless dance like the planets in the sky. Anyone touching these orbs would have revealed to them everything under the sun—everything that is and everything that will be.

A gasp escaped Jade’s lips as she read Perez’s account. She looked up and saw that Professor and Dorion had ended their discussion and were now looking at her expectantly.

“
Well?” asked Professor.

Jade just shook her head.
“You are not going to believe this.”

Before Jade could
embark on her summary of the account in the journal, their speedboat arrived at its destination and they spent the next half hour making arrangements for the rest of the journey. There, they learned that the only way to visit the island was by first obtaining a permit and traveling with one of the government approved tour agencies. A few casual inquiries however led them to a dive boat operator willing to shuttle them out to the island and put them on a remote beach, far from the watchful eyes of the park rangers. For the right price of course. Professor paid him in cash. He was glad that Jade had not asked where he’d gotten the money; he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to deflect her enquiries with “It’s a SEAL thing,” though in fact, that wasn’t far from the truth.

Tam Broderick had established secret
, discretionary bank accounts for use by Myrmidon agents operating internationally. If Hodges was monitoring the account, looking for activity, then he would know that they weren’t really dead, but the harsh reality of their situation was that they needed money to survive. Besides, even if Hodges figured out that they were alive, there was no way he could use the bank records to track their location, so it was a risk worth taking. It was probably a moot point since someone had evidently found them out anyway, but he didn’t want to have to explain all that to Jade, especially given how much of a control freak she was turning into.

Once they were underway, Jade eagerly began relating the last confession of Gil Perez. The name was maddeningly familiar to Professor; he was certain that he
’d heard it before.
Now I’m the one getting déjà vu
.
Too bad I don’t have Internet access. I could clear this up with one Google search.
The question of the account’s author was soon forgotten as Jade went on with the story.

“
The conjurer is almost certainly Dr. John Dee,” she explained. “He was Queen Elizabeth’s occult advisor.”

Professor nodded.
“He also claimed to have received visions from angels and was known to use a crystal ball—he called it the Shew Stone—for divination. That’s the ‘Eye’ Perez was talking about.”

“
I don’t get this reference to Grey Sisters. Maybe I translated it wrong.
Hermanas
could also mean ‘nuns,’ like sisters of a Holy order.”

“
The exact words were ‘Eye of the Grey Sisters.’ I think that’s a reference to the
Graeae
—three blind witches from Greek mythology who shared a single crystal eye, which in some versions, gave them the power to see the fates of men.”

“
So now we’ve got Greek mythology added to the mix.”

He shrugged.
“If this Alvaro received a Classical education, he might have known about the
Graeae
, but I’m sure he only meant it as comparison. It doesn’t mean there’s a connection, In any case, the Shew Stone is real. It’s part of the collection at the British Museum. And that manuscript was probably written in Enochian script, a language Dee claimed was the language used by angels, and which only he and his initiates could interpret. Maybe the crystal ball polarized the light and revealed something written in invisible ink.”

Jade frowned as if he had overlook
ed the most obvious explanation, which in fact he had, and not by accident. “Somehow, Dee knew about Teotihuacan, about the stone spheres and what they could do. And this explains how Perez came to be in that cavern. He followed the clues Dee had left in that manuscript and ended up down there.”

“
What clues?”

Jade wrinkled her nose in irritation,
then looked back at the journal. “It says here that the angel told Dee that these stone orbs could be found in the Navel of the Moon.”

“
Lunar belly button lint?”

“
Orphaniel is the angelic ruler of the moon and stars,” Jade continued. “And more importantly, in the Nahuatl language, the word for ‘moon’ is
mētztli
and ‘navel’ is
xīctli
, which combine to form the word
Mēxihco
—Mexico literally means ‘navel of the moon.’”

“
I’m impressed,” he said, and actually meant it.

“
You’re not the only one here who’s ready to play Final Jeopardy,” she retorted.

“
Still, that doesn’t exactly narrow it down to Teotihuacan.”

Jade scanned the journal again.
“Perez just seemed to know where to go. He and Alvaro traveled to the New World and somehow knew exactly where to look to find the entrance.” She snapped her fingers. “The entrance was in the Plaza of the Moon. And which stone was missing from the map of the solar system? The Moon stone! It all fits.”

Professor wasn
’t quite as enthusiastic about the web she had spun to connect the disparate facts, but he couldn’t deny that it was a near-perfect fit.

“
Listen to this,” Jade continued. “‘In the bosom of the earth, we found the orbs just as described in the vision. Blinded by pride and ignorance, we believed that we had discovered a great prize and decided that we would bring one of the orbs with us, so that our King might at last have an advantage in the war with Heretic Queen. We chose to bring along the smallest of the orbs, that which circled another just as the moon circles round the earth.’

“
That’s why there wasn’t a Moon stone,” she said, looking up. “They took it. Or rather, Alvaro took it. Perez was stranded.”

“
How were they able to move the stone?” asked Dorion. “We weren’t able to budge the Earth stone out of the dark matter field.”

“
It explains that here. ‘When first we laid hands upon the orb, a dark sleep came upon us. Alvaro awoke first and roused me with the story of a dream in which he presented the orb to the King. I had dreamed as well, but my dream was strange, as if I had dreamed the dream of another man. We feared to touch the orb again, but Alvaro proposed that we place it in a casket in order to convey it away without having to touch it. This we did, though the orb was heavier than lead shot and when we began to move it, the earth began to shake. The earthquake caused the tunnel to collapse. Alvaro escaped with the orb, but I was trapped.’”

“
The dark matter field would have added mass to the Moon stone,” Dorion conceded, “but I don’t know why it would have caused an earthquake.”

“
Maybe it was a coincidence,” replied Jade. “The point is that Alvaro escaped with the Moon stone. It’s out there somewhere.”

“
Where?” asked Professor. “Did Alvaro’s vision come true? Is the Moon stone in Spain? If so, don’t you think we would have heard about it?”

For a moment, the only sound was the low hum of the boat
’s engines and the wind blowing across the water. Then Jade resumed reading. “‘Pride is a deadly sin, and this is my punishment. Yet, I have gazed upon the life that might have been, as one might gaze through a window. It is there, so close yet just out of reach. If only I could open the window and step through, I would.’” She raised her eyes. “That’s it. Nothing more but his signature.”

Professor nodded slowly.
“I guess just knowing the future isn’t always enough to save you from it.”

Dorion said nothing.

The mood of
the group improved somewhat when the skipper of their boat pointed out a pod of bottlenose dolphins splashing along beside them, riding the boat’s bow wave like surfers shooting the curl at Pipeline. Jade briefly forgot about Gil Perez, trapped forever beneath the Pyramid of the Sun, and found herself laughing at the antics of the highly intelligent cetacean mammals.

“
Costa Rica is the dolphin capital of the world,” the skipper announced proudly. “More dolphins here than anywhere else.”

Jade sensed that Professor was about to contradict the man and quickly laid a restraining hand on his forearm. Before she could say anything though, she caught her first glimpse of the island, and forgot completely about the dolphins.

It looked exactly as she…remembered? Was that the right word? It seemed as familiar to her as Diamond Head in Hawaii or the Pueblo ruins at Chaco Canyon where she had done field research for her graduate studies. The memories became even more distinct as they drew closer.

The skipper brought the boat in close to the beach then deftly
came about, so that the bow pointed back out to sea for a quick exit. He reversed the outboard, nudging the craft closer to the island, then raised it out of the water so that it wouldn’t drag in the sand. A moment later, there was a crunch as the keel rode up onto the shore and the he jumped out to hold the boat steady.

Jade recalled that this was as close to dry land as the boat would go, and without further prompting, she hopped over the gunwale and splashed up out of the surf. Dorian was right behind her, and Professor, with less assuredness, brought up
the rear. The boat’s skipper gave the craft a push and then leaped back aboard. He would return, or so he had promised, just before sunset to pick them up. Jade was barely aware of his departure.

“
This way,” she said, pointing to a rock fall that formed a natural staircase leading up into the verdant wall of the forest.

The jungle was almost preternaturally quiet. From time to time, Jade could hear the croaking of tree frogs, but these sounds would vanish at the sound of a foot snapping a fallen twig or the rustle of their passage through the undergrowth. Despite her memories of this journey, there were few distinguishing landmarks to help her recall exactly where they had found…what exactly, she didn
’t recall, but there was something here, something that had not yet been uncovered. When they abruptly emerged onto one of the designated trails, Jade felt not only a sense of profound relief, but also a return of her certitude.

The trail soon brought them to the two stone spheres that had been discovered on the island—small orbs of igneous rock, pitted and weathered by years of exposure to the weather. The smaller sphere had been completely exposed and sat on the surface, while the other was still partially buried. Nearby, other stones had been stacked and deliberately placed to form what looked almost like a primitive shrine. The brochure Jade had been given at Finca 6 indicated that the island was believed to have been a sacred burial ground for the pre-Columb
ian inhabitants of Diquis Delta. Yet her instincts—or was it something she was about to discover?—told her that those ancient indigenous people had merely repurposed the stone spheres as grave markers, without any knowledge of their origin or original purpose.