The Sanctuary (5 page)

Al-Hillah
,
Iraq
.
Fall, 1977.

She’d been in the
Middle East
for just over seven years, most of that time spent on digs in
Petra
,
Jordan
, and in
Upper Egypt
. She’d learned a lot on those digs—it was where she’d first fallen in love with the region—but they weren’t hers. Before long, she was yearning to sink her teeth into something she could call her own. And after a lot of hard research and some relentless lobbying for funding, she’d managed to swing it. The dig in question would concern the city that had fascinated her for as long as she could remember and yet had been underserved by archaeology of late:
Babylon
.

The history of the fabled city went back more than four thousand years, but as it was built of sun-dried mudbrick, not stone, not much of it had survived the ravages of time. The little that had was eventually carted away by the various colonial powers who had ruled over the troubled area over the last half century. With Mother Nature, the Ottomans, the French, and the Germans picking away at it like vultures, the ancient cradle of civilization didn’t stand a chance.

Evelyn had hoped, in however small a measure, to try to rectify that injustice.

The digs had started in earnest. The working conditions weren’t too harsh, and she’d gotten used to the heat and the insects by then. She’d been surprised at how helpful the authorities had been. The Ba’athists had taken control of the country five years earlier after a decade of coups d’état, and she’d found them pragmatic and courteous—
The Exorcist
had been filming nearby when she first got there, and Saddam’s bloody takeover was years away. The area around the dig itself was poor, but the people were kind and welcoming.
Baghdad
was only a couple of hours’ drive away, which was handy for good food, a decent bath, and some sorely missed social interaction.

The find itself had come about by fluke. A local goatherd who was digging for water had discovered a small trove of cuneiform tablets, among the oldest examples of writing, in an underground chamber near an old mosque in Al-Hillah. Being close by, Evelyn had been the first on the scene and decided the area merited further exploration.

A few weeks later, while doing soundings inside an old garage adjacent to the mosque, she found something else. This find wasn’t nearly as ancient or valuable. It wasn’t a spectacular find, by any means: a series of small, barrel-vaulted, underground chambers, tucked away for centuries. The first few rooms were bare, aside from some austere wooden furniture and some urns, jars, and cooking utensils.
Interesting, but not exceptional.
Something in the deepest chamber, however, grabbed her attention far more viscerally: A large, circular carving of a snake eating its own tail had been tooled into the main wall of the chamber.

The Ouroboros.

It was one of the oldest mystical symbols in the world. Its roots could be traced back thousands of years to the pig dragons of the Hongshan culture in
China
and to ancient
Egypt
and, from there, on to the Phoenicians and the Greeks, who gave it its name, Ouroboros, which meant the “tail-devourer.” From there, the image was found in Norse mythology, Hindu tradition, and Aztec symbolism, to name but a few. It also held a firm place in the arcane symbolism of alchemists over the centuries. The self-devouring serpent was a powerful archetype that represented different things to different peoples—a positive symbol for some, a portent of evil for others.

Further exploration of the chambers yielded more curious discoveries. What had been thought to be cooking utensils in one of the chambers turned out to be something rather more esoteric: primitive laboratory
equipment.
The shards of broken glass, upon closer examination, were actually pieces of flasks and beakers. Remnants of cork stoppers and pipes were also found, along with more jars, and pouches made of animal skins.

Something ominous about the chambers captivated Evelyn’s curiosity. She felt as if she had stumbled into the locale of an unknown clandestine group, an unknown cabal who wished to meet away from curious eyes, watched over by the sinister tail-devourer. She spent the next few weeks exploring the tunneled rooms more carefully and was rewarded by a further discovery: a large, earthenware jar, sealed with animal skin, buried in a corner of one of the dark rooms. The Ouroboros, similar to the one on the wall, was tooled into it. In it, Evelyn found paper folios—the material had supplanted parchment and vellum in the area since the eighth century, long before reaching Europe—that were richly covered with texts and elaborately decorated with mesmerizing geometric patterns, scientific renderings of nature, and colorful, if bizarre, anatomical studies.

As Evelyn flicked through the various images of the symbol in her file—etchings, woodcuts, and other prints—she came across a bunch of old, faded photographs. She put the file aside and perused the pictures. There were several shots of the chambers, and others of her with the team at the dig, one of whom was Farouk.
How he’s changed
, she thought.
How we’ve all changed.
She stiffened as her fingers fell upon a shot that sent a little tremor though her. It showed her much younger self, a bright-eyed and ambitious thirty-year-old woman, standing with a man of roughly her age. They were side by side at the site of a desert dig, two adventurers from a bygone age. The shots weren’t exactly high-resolution clear—they were small prints she’d had developed at the time and were weathered after sitting in her folder for almost thirty years. The sun had been beating down savagely that day, and both their faces were obscured by sunglasses and safely tucked away under the protective shadows of their safari hats. Regardless, her eyes quickly filled in the details of his features. And even after all these years, the sight of him still made her heart turn over.

Tom.

She gazed deeper into the picture, and the noise of the chaotic city outside receded into silence. The image brought a bittersweet smile to her face as conflicting emotions swirled inside her.

She’d never understood what had really happened all those years ago.

Tom Webster had appeared unannounced at Al-Hillah, a few weeks into her find. He’d introduced himself as an archaeologist-historian with the Haldane Institute, a research center that was affiliated with
Brown
University
. He told her he’d been in
Jordan
when a colleague had mentioned Evelyn’s inquiries about the Ouroboros. Research in the dark ages, before the Internet, involved the use of libraries and picking the brains of experts by actually talking to them—and often, shockingly, face-to-face. He said he’d driven overland to see her and find out more about her discovery.

They’d spent four weeks together.

She’d never felt as strongly about any man since.

Their days were spent examining the chamber, studying the writings and the illustrated folios from the chamber, and following leads to libraries and museums in
Baghdad
and elsewhere in
Iraq
, seeking out scholars and historians.

The calligraphy of the texts placed their origin firmly in the Abbasid era, sometime around the tenth century. Carbon dating one of the folios’ leather straps had supported their assumption on that front. The texts were beautifully written and illustrated and dealt with a variety of subjects: philosophy, logic, mathematics, chemistry, astrology, astronomy, music, and spirituality. But nothing explained who had written them, nor was there any mention of the tail-devourer symbol’s significance.

Evelyn and Webster worked together with a shared passion, and their inquiries showed a brief spark of promise when they uncovered information about an obscure group of the same era, the Brethren of Purity. The Brethren’s precise identity was a matter of conjecture. Little was known about them beyond that they were Neoplatonic philosophers who met in secret every twelve days, and whose shrouded legacy included a remarkable compendium of scientific, spiritual, and esoteric teachings garnered from different traditions that was considered to be one of the oldest encyclopedias on record.

Certain aspects of the writings found in the chamber, however, matched the writings left behind by the Brethren, both in style and in content. None of the writings from the chamber, however, dealt with the spirituality of its occupants. Although rooted in Islam, the Brethren’s writings also included teachings from the Gospels and from the Torah. The Brethren were seen as freethinkers who didn’t ascribe to any specific creed, seeking instead to find truth in all religions and valuing knowledge as the true nourishment of the soul. They strove for
a reconciliation
, a fusion of the sectarian divisions that plagued the region, in the hope of creating a broad, spiritual sanctuary for all.

Evelyn and Webster had speculated about whether the cabal from the underground chamber could have been an offshoot of the Brethren, but there was nothing to prove or disprove that theory. One aspect of that theory, though, fit rather nicely: The Brethren were thought to have been based in
Basra
and in
Baghdad
. Al-Hillah sat between them.

Throughout their time together, Evelyn had been surprised by Webster’s unflagging interest, and she’d been taken aback by his unbounded energy and drive in elucidating the little mystery she’d unearthed. Also, for someone she’d never heard of, he seemed to know an awful lot about the Ouroboros and about the history of the region.

She was also pretty sure that he’d fallen in love with her, just as she had with him. Which made his sudden departure all the harder to stomach. Especially given what he’d left her with. And the lie she’d had to live with ever since.

Her face clouded over with grief as memories of that painful separation came rushing back. A passive acceptance, one she’d nurtured over many years, took control and pushed the melancholy feeling away and yanked her back to her present predicament.

A few illustrated pages from the cabal’s chamber, alluring in their beauty and their mystery, stared down at her from frames on the wall opposite her desk. She tore her eyes off them and pulled out the stack of Polaroids Farouk had left with her. She pulled out the one showing the ancient codex, and a chill crawled down the back of her neck as she remembered his unsettling news.

Someone she knew was dead.
Because of it.

Where had Farouk’s friend found it? And what was in it? All those years ago, their search, hers and Tom’s, had come up blank. Why would this book be of any more importance?

She remembered Farouk’s last question:
Who else is after this book?

Given the turmoil around her, this was the last thing she needed right now. But there was no escaping it. She didn’t want to go to meet Farouk, but she knew she couldn’t disappoint him. He was counting on her. He needed help. He was scared. The more she remembered the fear that gripped his face, the more apprehensive she became of that meeting.

Another thought kept haranguing her.

She had to let Tom know.

If she could reach him, that is. They hadn’t exactly kept in touch. In fact, she hadn’t seen him or spoken to him again after he’d left
Iraq
.

Not even when she’d found out she was pregnant.

She put down the picture and pulled out her personal organizer. It was a large-size, leatherbound Filofax that had been with her for decades and could barely close for the paperwork, cards, and notes that had been stored between its battered covers over the years. She rummaged through its pockets and sleeves until she found the old card. It had his name, Tom Webster, printed in a stark, copperplate type on its front, along with the institute’s name and logo. She’d resisted using it, and with time it had gotten relegated to a remote corner of the Filofax and of her mind.

Thirty years. It was a pointless call to attempt.

Farouk’s plea rang in her ears.
You have to ask him,
Sitt
Evelyn
. Something inside her tore and made her give it a shot.

It took a few moments for the signal to bounce off a few satellites before the familiar ringing of a
U.S.
landline was shortly followed by a woman’s voice that, in an overly friendly tone, informed Evelyn that she was through to the Haldane Institute.

Evelyn hesitated. “I’m trying to reach an old friend,” she said eventually with a wavering voice. “His name’s Tom Webster. He left me this contact number for him, but…well, it’s been a while.”

“One moment, please.” Evelyn’s heart contracted as the phone operator checked her records. “I’m sorry,” the operator came back, somewhat inappropriately chirpy. “I don’t show anyone here by that name.”

Evelyn shrank back in her chair. “Are you sure? I mean, could you check again, please?”

The operator asked Evelyn to confirm the surname’s spelling, ran it again, and came up with nothing. Evelyn heaved a doleful sigh. The operator must have caught it, as she then added, “If you like, I can check our personnel records and get back to you. Perhaps your friend left some forwarding details.”