“I don’t think we can dismiss it as simply theoretical anymore. We’re going to Isla del Caño because Jade remembered going there in the future. Without that little nugget, we would still be fumbling around, clueless.”
Dorion shook his head. “The multiverse hypothesis allows that in one or more possible worlds, we discovered something without foreknowledge. We were already investigating locations where the spheres have been found, so it is not merely possible but probable. The space-time effects of the field do not show us our own future, but rather what is happening in parallel realities — just like watching a program on television. It only seems that we are watching our own future because so many of these alternative universes are almost completely indistinguishable from our own.”
Jade was not sure she understood but was grateful that Dorion had come to her rescue. She punched Professor playfully in the arm. “Yeah. So there.”
Professor grinned but then immediately countered the physicist’s argument with something even more esoteric, and soon the two men were lost in a discussion that was almost completely incomprehensible to Jade. “Young nerds in love,” she muttered, turning away to look at the passing scenery.
The idea that she had somehow been given special knowledge of the future was not what bothered Jade. Her first vision had been of something bad happening and they had only narrowly escaped that outcome. Now, she was being guided by an even more ambiguous premonition. But toward what? She thought she understood what Professor meant by Bootstrap Paradox, but what if this was something more like those Final Destination movies, or that old story Appointment in Samarra, where a man tries to escape his appointment with Death by running away to another city, only to find out that’s where Death was planning to meet him.
What if the universe is trying to correct the fact that we survived the explosion in Mexico?
This was why Jade hated not being in control, hated being swept along by visions and impulses that didn’t make any sense. The fact that there did not seem to be a better choice was even more frustrating.
At the mouth of the Sierpe River, they passed out into the choppy wind-swept waters of Bahia Drake — Drake’s Bay, where according to local lore, famed English privateer Sir Francis Drake had harbored his ships and possibly cached his treasures. Drake of course had been highly favored in the court of Queen Elizabeth, and that connection reminded Jade that she had not finished translating the last confession of Gil Perez. As Professor and Dorion continued to debate the finer points of causality loops, Jade opened the journal and indulged in a different sort of time travel.
Four years ago, with my companion Alvaro Diego Menendez Castillo, I went forth on a mission to defeat the Heretic Queen’s conjurer, whose eyes see all.
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.”