”I advise you, my friend. Very strange things have been happening around the Pasquino. People have disappeared. Just the other day, my guest Isabella from Liguria, her mother went through to the Pasquino and did not return. We have not seen her since! It is said that Thoth´s Brotherhood monitor it and Bellafino have his men there and catch everyone who goes there. I advise you.”
”But what is it, Antonio?”
”Pasquino is a statue away from the Piazza Navona, walk through the streets to the south, down towards Piazza Navona´s eastern corner of Via Giulia. You cannot miss it.”
Michele got a stick from Antonio. He pushed himself out on the street, shoved away a dog that came and sniffed. He was full of anticipation and at the same time he was very scared.
A man with an empty truck came down the hill. He had just left wine to some taverns. Michele was allowed to jump up. The man drove him to the Piazza del Popolo. When he dropped out, he felt better already and could throw the stick.
It was desolate at the Pasquino statue. Although it was almost in the middle of Rome no people moved there. It must have been a quite amusing sight, just a stone's throw away the taverns were filled, people went long detours around Pasquino, as if the piazza where the statue stood was a large hole that had to be avoided.
Michele crept toward the little piazza statue was on. He put out his lantern and slipped into the darkness towards the statue. He hid behind the pedestal it sat on.
Looked up around the sides of the streets around it.
They were deserted.
The houses that were around the piazza were vacated. Shutters were removed. Large holes in the facades gaped into even bigger voids in the deserted houses.
He lit the lamp again and brought it to the statue. It depicted a man in a toga with no arms who sat on the pedestal. The head was tilted to the right and the face was stripped away. It looked as if someone had ripped it away.
Behind the statue, he discovered one caduceus which was painted directly on the wall. He turned off the lamp and snuggled against the caduceus. He listened if anyone came but the piazza and the streets were quiet.
The darkness was enveloping, his eyes had get used to it. He had to light the lamp again.
Under the caduceus hung a note. There was nothing on it. He took it down and looked at the back but it was also empty. When he turned it, he felt a gust of honey coming from the note.
The scent took him back to Peterzano´s studio where he was taught. One of the apprentices had written a note with honey. A maple writing.4
Michele was excited and did not bother to get from the piazza. He took out the light from the lantern and held it gently behind the linen paper. He leaned against Pasquino´s pedestal and looked low the light shone through the paper.
After a while, a burned sentence appeared in one corner of the paper. Michele sat up. Eyes widened. Forgot about the world around him.
He brought the light slowly along the paper and like the moon lagging the tides behind shone the light up a maple writing as a tail behind the flame.
When he read the scripture he heard rapid footsteps behind him. He turned and saw five guards running towards him. He felt it burn in his hand. He saw the light and the paper that was burning in his hands.
The fire ate the maple writing.
It was no use fighting the men.
The men took him to the notorious prison Tor di Nona near Ponte Sant'Angelo on the other side of the water from the citadel where the Nolan was.
Michele was brought to one of the medieval dark prison´s cells. No one told him what he was accused of or when he could get out. The small glimmer of light Michele saw was from the glade on the door to the prison guard's room where he sat at a table in front of a log and cut a knife.
Michele called for the prison guard but the guard ignored him.
A few hours later, Michele dropped to the floor. The moisture from the stone floor pushed up through his pants but he did not care. There was no bunk, no chair, no table. He could not stand.
He was lying in a fetal position and repeated the message from the maple writing from behind Pasquino. Since he was thrown in the Tor di Nona he assumed that what he had seen was a big secret and he did everything to remember.
After midnight Michele heard a door opened, two men entered. The clouds in the sky had scattered and the moon light rippled through the cavities in the medieval tower. Michele sat down at the grate and looked through the glade into the prison guard's room. He only saw the backs of the men. One was obviously the servant and the other his master. The servant exclaimed at the half-asleep guard.
”Stand up for the Cardinal!”
The guard looked out from behind the half-closed eyelids. When he saw the men he flew up instantly from his chair. He who was called the cardinal spoke soft and low. Michele could not hear his words. The guard was leaning forward in shame and nodded occasionally. The men left the room.
The guard took his bunch of keys and opened the door to the cells of the tower where Michele sat. He went to Michele's cell. As he unlocked the cell, he said.
”You seem to have friends in high places.”
Michele looked puzzled at him. Michele did not have time to think about it but did not want to forget the maple writing.
He rushed out from Tor di Nona, he had never run as fast as he ran now, and that was something he did right, otherwise he had soon forgot the message and Ludwig's fate had become quite another.
Michele ran into Piazza San Luigi dei Francesi. He did not bother to look after Sciarra but ran directly into the candle making store. He bought linen paper and borrowed a quill pen from the store owner. He put up the linen paper on his bench. He held one hand concealing what he wrote, while he wrote down the maple writing.
Stand in the shadow of St Paul on Inferno´s first day.
* I-CXVIII-VIII-XXVIII *
Thoth Fraternitatis
36
Train on the way to Florence
June 15
Ludwig didn´t seem to get it together concerning the original truth. However, it made his thoughts on the White Mountains and Filmhuset to disappear completely. He asked.
”But how can it be that the Egyptian heritage, what you said about Thoth and Moses and all that, is so suppressed? If that is so, why has hasn´t more people realized it?”
Ludwig was skeptical of all the old truths that he thought swirled around in the tabloid columns and all the millions of pallets of books sold each year, which parasitized on the human hope to understand the world.
Ludwig, as I knew him, was an idealist above all else. He had extreme difficulty dealing with people who were dishonest. Although he knew that reality was what it was, he could put much energy into arguing with those he thought was dishonest. I think that was why he couldn’t´ stand charlatans, because they more or less knew they cheated people, people who left their hopes in their hands. I remember once when we were and called5
Before August could answer Ludwig continued. He understood that he could not free himself from his captivity, but he could fight in the cage. He spoke quickly and showed no respect for August's beliefs.
”All this dung, even if it is not fully translatable into this, it's the same old song which it has been through the centuries. Something must constantly be divine. The Divine Man. Four elements. Holistic approach, boil some heather so you sleep better. Well, make tea on rowan berries and you'll be less stressed. It's just junk everything, dowsing, curry-check, Muhammad, Buddha, Astrology, Jesus. Common to all this hocus pocus is that if you expose the centuries-old traditions to one ounce of critical scrutiny they all fall apart like a house of cards.”
August was about to break in but for once he didn´t succeed.
When Ludwig began to speak the words just flowed, he could not hold them back, they had been trapped for too long.
”But I agree. It is easy to be seduced. Easy to start believing and hoping to bestow peace to this uncertainty and turmoil that is based in mo
rtal dread. The fact that it's so incredible to be human, a small dot without meaning in an infinitely expanding universe, in a solar system with eight planets and one star who is one of 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, which is only a measly galaxy among 170 billion galaxies in the visible universe. Just because you can´t understand the magnitude of such a galactic year, the time it takes for the sun to go once around the Milky Way, 226 million years, or take in what all this space is and the fact that we hear no shouts back from the black blanket over us does not mean we have to raise everything up to divinity. But yes, a divine truth is easier to understand than reality. Religion's ability to comfort doesn´t make it true. No matter how beautiful the Lily of the Valley is, it´s still toxic.”
August looked surprised at Ludwig.
”I didn´t know you felt so strongly, Ludwig. But if you´re done with your speech, then I can explain.”
Ludwig knew he committed too much, he regretted that he didn´t hold back. He nodded.
”In the way you´re speaking now once upon a time bitter scientists spoke in the same way when they didn´t understand the Newtonian mechanics. They called it hocus pocus. I have met several living scientists who are still bitter, but the object of their resentment is no longer the mechanics, it is super string theory and the Higgs mechanism.
The original truth is what we are all struggling to get ahold of, and the formulas that allow us to open the dimensions that are locked for us primitive beings today. Just as happened before in history.
It's just that Thoth´s truth is a much bigger jump in understanding, I would say more than Newtonian mechanics and Einstein's theory of relativity. But we should be aware that this jump is extremely dangerous. It can destroy us.
Truths about the laws of the universe can be devastating. Einstein's simple, ingenious formula E = mc2 enabled a greater understanding of the universe, but it also revealed nature's inherent power to a certain limit and how to use it.
From his formula we derived an understanding of how celestial bodies behave and move but the formula also created the atomic bomb.
That will also happen with Thoth´s formula but the equivalent is a power up to 1000 times that. So if someone gets hold of Thoth´s formula that does not have good intentions, then we might be done for.”
August hanged off his jacket under the parcel shelf. He sat down and put his hand on the table by the window.
”Back to your question about why no one talks about the Egyptian heritage. Yes, it is a difficult question, I don´t know. Probably because there is no reason. Maybe people are not interested anymore, they have microwave ovens and fashion magazines to mind. And why, for example, should Christianity admit that they are based on an older religion? Then their own religion would by definition be worthless and false, because it distorted the old heritage.
I don´t know how it is nowadays but earlier the church worked very hard to make sure certain knowledge didn´t get out, that you may know. When Thoth´s Brotherhood wrote the Corpus they were constantly chased by the Church, in particular, by the General Inquisitor Bellarmine whose notebook you have read some in.
Now, although many do not know it, there is common knowledge that there was a great exchange between Christians and Egyptian. A fairly clear written evidence of this is, I guess you have not been in Luxor because you did not know of the Edfu Temple, but in the Luxor Temple and in the Karnak Temple, one can clearly see traces of the Christians.
If you ever visit the temples you will see that the roofs are burned with black coal. The first Christians lived in the sand caves, when the temples were in sand. They burned their pots down there and destroyed many images in the temples because they were afraid of them. The images of the gods were reportedly coming to life in the night, in the shadows of the fires. They tried desperately to carve in their Christian symbols over the ancient ones. But eventually they grew together with their own religion. They recognized the images, understood that the Egyptian one were older. The Last Judgment, The Creation, and so on.
For a long time the Church tried to hide that these temples existed at all, although it is difficult because Karnak is the largest temple area in the world. But they still managed for quite a long time. Ptolemy was the last of antiquity, he lived shortly after Jesus, who mentioned these temples and placed them in the right place. It was not until the late 1600s when Johann Michael Vansleb located the temples right on the map again. For about 1500 years, there was total silent on this.”
The train went into a tunnel. The cabin was dark because August and Ludwig have not yet switched on some lights. A ray of light shone in from the hallway.
After a moment the door opened and light flooded in. A man sat in the seat closest to the door in the six seated compartment. He read the Financial Times that was big enough to hide both his face and torso.
*
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
June 15
Alexander looked at Julian and Tobias with contempt. They sat and played cards and drank coffee. He thought they were like two brats who were waiting for the break.
Wagner was sitting with Max. He drove a map program and Google Maps simultaneously. Investigated were Feigl could have gone. Was trying to settle into his skull. They assumed he was driving.
Unfortunately, Austria's geographical position on the continent was criminals' wet dream, combined with the EU's free movement. Alexander rubbed his hands on his face. He wished he had more resources to juggle.
He thought through several different scenarios.
Feigl had a lead of around 20 hours, in fact his lead was much greater but that Alex didn´t know. He was blindly obliged to keep working on the thesis he currently had.
Alexander thought about which routes he could´ve taken, if Feigl went north, he could have been in Stockholm now. West, Dublin. Southwest, Madrid, South, Palermo, Southeast, Athens. Not to mention all the towns in between. That was a big fucking freedom he sat on according to Wagner. They only knew that he had not used any credit cards, he had not even taking out money from an ATM for over a month. Wagner concluded that he must have planned the theft for a while.
Alexander sent home the stars. Max shut down the computers. Went to buy a sausage. Came back with a soda to Wagner. Started up again. Said he'd work a few hours to get a clear picture of the events at the museum. Said with care.
”Alex, go to Felix. I will still be here. I'll call as soon as I hear anything. We hope that the hotline number delivers.”
Alexander bit his lip. Took a sip. Max was right. There was no idea of waiting around at the central.
He burned off to the hospital. Messed Lisa in the car. Told about where he was and where he was going.
Alexander thought about how quiet the hallways were in the hospital, almost uncomfortably quiet. As he walked out of the elevator, he saw a nurse pushing a cart in front of her with empty medicine cups, no one else was in sight.
Felix had his own room. He sat with him for a few hours with his little hand in his. It looked like as if Felix was just sleeping.
He went home a few hours after midnight. He lay down on the bed and kissed Lisa on the shoulder, the neck, on the cheek. She rolled away and pulled the blanket for himself.
Alexander stared at the ceiling.
*
August cleared his throat and continued.
”But on the other hand. It is perhaps most likely because the language was not known for a very long time.”
Ludwig raised his eyebrows.
”The language?”
”Yes, Ludwig, the Egyptian language that was deciphered when they found the Rosetta stone that you may have heard of.”
Ludwig knew. He had even seen it in the entrance hall of the British Museum. It is hard to imagine how things would have been if it wasn´t for the Rosetta stone. French soldiers had found it in the late 1700s in Rosetta, Egypt. Although they did not understand it, there were tributes to Ptolemy III inscribed on the stone. The tributes were written in De
motic, Greek and hieroglyphics. The Frenchman Champollion broke the code at the beginning of the 1800s and a world of Egyptian texts written in hieroglyphics opened that had been hidden for thousands of years.
August took out his notebook.
”I'll show you a simple example, which is quite famous nowadays. Look at these pictures. What do you think is common to them all?”
Ludwig took the book.
Ludwig studied the pictures and then said.
”Don´t really know but both Thoth and Horus have bird heads while Isis has a human head.”
August put his hands together and said calmly.
”But what do they have in common? See what all three has in their hands.”
Ludwig looked again. Saw to his surprise that all three had something that looked like a Christian cross in their hands. But instead of the top pin on the cross there was a loop.
”That's the Ankh-symbol, as you might have heard of”, said August, pointing to the god's hands. ”Remember that these images are several thousand years older than Jesus. This is the model of the Christian Cross. The loop that separates them also has a connection to Christians. It represents the female genitalia, and thus symbolizes life.”
The man with the Financial Times, looked out from behind his newspaper. He had a rat face that was as sharp as a stake in Transylvania, which suited him because he was a real rat.
He looked curiously at the bag that Ludwig had on the seat next to him. He leaned forward as if to examine it closer, but when Ludwig saw him, he hid behind the newspaper again.
”Do you understand now what I mean?” asked August.
Ludwig was somewhat distracted because of the rat. He nodded.
”Look here, I'll show you.”
August took out his wallet and took out some coins.
”I'm going to illustrate how clear it is that Jesus is based on Horus in the Egyptian Creation family and to the Sun, as the Egyptian religion largely revolves around, it is also central in Christianity.”
August put up three coins in a row on the table by the window. Slightly further away he put another one and after some space he put one larger coin.