Raga Six (A Doctor Orient Occult Novel) (28 page)

Ahmehmet looked at Orient, his thin, quick face drawn into a reflective frown. "Yes, Yousef is a good student. That man you saw me talking to," Ahmehmet nodded his head toward the door, "he wants me to take his son to study here with me." He closed his eyes and shook his head. "But it cannot be. Once I had as many as seven students. But that was a long time ago. Now there is only Yousef. That man’s son would be wasting his time with me. Not everyone can be taught." He opened his eyes. "I don’t recruit students," he said slowly. "I merely recognize them."
 

Two men entered the shop. They were both wearing hooded robes, the traditional
djellabas
, and each had a knife dangling under his left arm. Ahmehmet rose and went to the desk.
 

Orient understood most of the conversation. The two men wanted an agreement drawn up and witnessed concerning the division of some land. But they hadn’t made any agreement. They couldn’t decide on the division of the property.
 

Ahmehmet sat at his desk, listening to both men, his skinny frame obscured by a bowl of fresh flowers next to the ornately worked cash register.
 

After a few minutes of listening to them wrangle, he asked them to draw a map of the property. One of the men did so while the other hovered over his shoulder, offering advice and making corrections.
 

When the two men were both satisfied with the map, Ahmehmet looked at it, then tossed it onto the desk. "One of you divide this property," he said, "and the other choose the part he will have."
 

The two men looked at each other. Finally, one pointed to the map and the other began making careful lines on the outline of the map. When they were finished, Ahmehmet collected a fee from each man and rang up the NO SALE sign on the register as he deposited the money. There was no haggling by either of the men. They merely paid quickly and left the shop murmuring excitedly about the agreement.
 

As Ahmehmet returned to the pillow next to Orient’s, Yousef entered carrying a small table already set with two glasses stuffed with mint leaves, a pot of honeyed tea, and Ahmehmct’s long pipe.
 

"Do you know the meaning of the mandala on your cigarette case?" Ahmehmet asked softly.
 

Orient nodded. "It’s the mandala of my fate."
 

Ahmehmet sipped his tea. "It is the mandala of a special fate," he said, putting the glass down. He picked up his pipe and began filling the clay bowl with kif from the pouch at his side. "In that fate there lives the possibility of linking the world of men with the Serene Knowledge."
 

Orient took the cigarette case from his pocket and looked at the design. It was formed of graceful interlocking spirals that drew his awareness into their spindly lines. He opened the case and took out a hand-wrapped cigarette.
 

"Pythagoras, one of the wisest of men, had a similar mandala," Ahmehmet said, striking a match and holding the flame out to Orient.
 

Orient inhaled and listened, letting his mind become receptive and trying to discern the direction of Ahmehmet’s casual discussion. "You mean the mathematician?" he asked.
 

"Yes, but he was much more than the father of geometry and more than the prophet of Newton’s laws of inverse attraction," Ahmehmet answered. He puffed his pipe. "His work was to attempt to reduce all of the great sciences of the Egyptians and Hebrews to a system of numbers, and measure each against the other."
 

An old woman wearing a dirty woolen blanket as a cloak over her torn robes shuffled into the shop. Her ankles were swollen and her toes stuck out through the rips in her slippers. Ahmehmet rose to greet her and helped her to the chair in front of his desk. She said something in a dialect Orient couldn’t understand. Ahmehmet protested, answering her in the same dialect. The woman sat up in her chair in adamant silence, reached under her robes, and produced a worn deck of playing cards.
 

Ahmehmet sighed and took the deck from the woman’s outstretched hands. As Ahmehmet shuffled the cards and started dealing them out in a circle, Orient realized that he was reading the Arab tarot cards for the woman. The tarot deck was the forerunner of modern playing cards and was used by the ancient Arabs and Egyptians as both an oracle and a pastime.
 

Orient watched Ahmehmet flip the cards, his mind drifting back to the legend of Pythagoras. The mathematician had spent twenty-one years as a neophyte to the Egyptian priests before they would allow him to begin studying their carefully guarded rites and sciences. He was the father of the Greek and Arab scientific method. His geometry and philosophy are still valid in today’s modern world. But, toward the end of his life, Pythagoras’s schools were disbanded and his students hunted down.
 

Before Ahmehmet had finished reading the woman’s cards, a tall man in an impeccable brocaded robe, dark glasses, and red fez came into the shop. Ahmehmet left the woman and began talking to the tall man in rapid French, a language Orient understood. The man wanted to buy an antique necklace hanging in the window. A rope of amber on which hung an exquisitely worked hand of Fatima, crusted with emeralds.
 

"Take what I offer you," the man insisted, "It is a fair price."
 

"Give me my price," Ahmehmet smiled, "and you’ll have a bargain."
 

The man’s face relaxed. "Perhaps," he said. "I’ll see what you say tomorrow."
 

Ahmehmet watched the man go, then turned and walked slowly back to his desk, shaking his head. "He will be here a hundred more days before he will decide to buy the necklace," he said ruefully to Orient. Then he focused his attention on the cards in front of the old woman. He spoke to her again in the dialect she used. The woman rose, kissed Ahmehmet’s hand, scooped the cards up from the desk, and hurried from the shop.
 

Ahmehmet came over and sat near Orient. "She is an old friend. I can’t refuse her. It was for her grandson that she wanted the cards read." He picked up his pipe from the table. "But we were speaking of Pythagoras." As he lit his pipe he looked at Orient over the flame of the match. "He made only one error."
 

Orient looked down at the cigarette case on the table. "What was that?"
 

"Pythagoras thought that his work would protect his existence," Ahmehmet answered. "He should have used the ordinary elements of his time to protect himself and his work. He shut himself off. His
 
fate was never brought to fruition. His link between men and the Serene Knowledge was broken."
 

Orient sipped his tea.
 

After a while Ahmehmet closed his shop and they went into the inner room for dinner. The room was decorated with bunches of flowers and a long, low table had been set up in the center of the room. Yousef was waiting for them. The boy joined Ahmehmet and Orient at the table after the two men were seated.
 

Dinner was served by both of Ahmehmet’s wives, the women Orient had seen that morning. According to custom, they did not join their husband at the table but ate by themselves in another room.
 

During the meal Ahmehmet turned his attention to Yousef. He asked the boy questions about mathematics, physics, and chemistry in three languages. Yousef answered them all without faltering. Then Ahmehmet began asking the boy questions about the basic mathematical systems used in the Hebrew Kaballa, the secret books of the bible that contained the occult teaching of Moses. They were difficult, complicated questions involving the principles of stress in the universe.
 

Orient sensed that Ahmehmet was not only proudly displaying his pupil’s preparation, but at the same time, by having Yousef recite the basic equations of Arabic occult science, was also refreshing Orient’s own knowledge.
 

After dinner Yousef left the table and Ahmehmet reached for his pipe. "He is a good student," he said thoughtfully, looking at Orient. "He has the gift of prophecy. But he cannot merge his mind with that of another. That is a rare and separate gift."
 

Orient didn’t answer. He felt a quick probe at the base of his brain and he settled back into a profound calm. He closed his eyes and the darkness inside his skull blazed up with the pictures of Ahmehmet’s thought.
 

Orient’s ability to receive information telepathically made it possible for Ahmehmet to transmit a large number of new elements and relationships. His consciousness perceived and felt, as never before, how the magical symbols were measurements of the stress points in the universe where infinite energies combined and changed. There, casually across the dinner table, Orient was shown the mechanics of a source of natural power that could regulate all existence. And he understood the intricate equations that could enable his consciousness to unite with that power.
 

When Orient opened his eyes, he found that his glass of tea was still hot. Ahmehmet’s instructions had taken only seconds, even though he had covered lifetimes of thought.
 

Ahmehmet called his wives into the room. They sat together in a corner, glancing shyly at Orient. They had musical instruments with them, three-stringed ouds that they began to strum. Then they started to sing, softly and self-consciously, almost under their breaths. Quiet, joyous chants of greeting accompanied by the metallic tones of the ouds.
 

Orient was pleased but restless. He drank from the household wine of honor and festivity offered by his host but it didn’t quench his thirst.
 

Ahmehmet had gone deep into a few areas of special knowledge with Orient. He had given him new perspectives on the roots of the Arab sciences. But he still hadn’t given Orient the means to help Presto. Or protect Raga. Orient still didn’t know the nature of the foul presence in the hospital room, just across the square.
 

He felt calm and protected in Ahmehmet’s house. But he could also hear a note of disappointment in the music released by his mind as Ahmehmet’s wives sang.
 

The next day Orient’s disappointment became apprehension.
 

He had spent some time in Ahmehmet’s shop during the morning, looking on while the small shopkeeper quickly disposed of client after client; leaving them all somehow satisfied, whether they were inquiring about a recommendation for some relative, buying a bracelet, or asking for advice. Ahmehmet was highly attentive to these affairs and his communication with Orient was limited. Just before noon Orient decided to go to the hospital to check on Presto’s condition.
 

As he cut through the stalls and entered the square, the profound calm that he’d felt since meeting Ahmehmet was pierced by a spear of anxiety. The bustling crowds made his movements across the square difficult, and the anxiety and disappointment became a sudden irritation which rent the calm even further, so that by the time he reached the hospital he was unsettled and unsure. He was flattered that he had been chosen for expansion to the second level, but the training seemed unimportant compared with protecting Raga.
 

The nurse recognized Orient and led him to Presto’s room. She opened the door for him and then went for Presto’s file. Orient’s brain recoiled from the presence as soon as he went inside, his confused emotions bursting into a single flare of fear.
 

The bitter vibration of energy was stronger today, not sluggish, but hovering expectantly, like a nest of insects disturbed. Orient noticed that the window next to Presto’s bed had been left open.
 

He checked Presto’s pulse, heartbeat, and respiration. The unconscious boy seemed weaker. He was startled by the gleaming intensity of the unseeing stare. As if Presto were in the thrall of some immense ecstatic sensation that was consuming his physical energy with its burning potency.
 

Orient’s awareness of the alien vibration in the room choked off his thoughts as his mind gagged on the thick presence. He stood there, trying to calm the urge to move away from the stench of his own fear as he waited for the nurse to come back with the daily report.
 

When the nurse returned, she handed Orient the file and hurried out again, suggesting that she too disliked spending more time than necessary in the small room.
 

Orient studied the report. More tests had proven negative. But all the readings of Presto’s functions were down, especially his blood pressure. As if someone had just turned the knob on a radio, lowering the volume.
 

He left the room and saw Doctor Hamid coming through a door down the hall. "Hello, Doctor," Hamid said quietly. He nodded at the paper in Orient’s hand. "You’ve seen the report?"
 

Orient nodded. "There’s nothing physically wrong. I don’t know what more to advise. But he seems to be going into a critical stage."
 

Hamid frowned. "I know. I may have to place him in an oxygen tent this afternoon. His respiration is very low."
 

Orient shook his head. He felt empty of any resource to help Presto. The boy’s life was leaking away and he didn’t know where to put the plug.
 

Doctor Harold put a pudgy hand on Orient’s arm. "Our profession is still inadequate to nature." His voice was low. "A doctor is never prepared enough to challenge death. We ultimately find ourselves in a lost cause. Finally we must submit."
 

Orient didn’t answer. He shook Hamid’s hand and walked slowly down the stairs and out of the hospital. He was numb with depression. If he was powerless to help Presto, then Raga was prey as well. The drums in the square assailed his despair, sending deep splinters of dejection through his thoughts.
 

He made a few wrong turns in the runnels that led to Ahmehmet’s shop and wandered aimlessly for a long time before he found his way back to his teacher.