Admiral Slovo was exclusively interested in the distant figures he discerned at the heart of the summoning light. He could not see but devoutly believed that the beckoning couple were his mother and father. For the first time since childhood he felt entirely at liberty to water his face with tears.
There were other things as well to enhance and complete such unaccustomed high emotion. Something that might have been called music, but containing waves of empathy and intimations of wisdom, accompanied him courtesy of an invisible choir. Figures from his past, people he’d sent on before him, flashed into brief life to assure him, without the slightest guile, that there were no hard feelings. Admiral Slovo started to appreciate the things that previously would have cannoned off the dryness he’d cultivated. Suddenly these topics seemed of endless import – if only he could grasp what the light was trying to say …
Like a three-year-old newly introduced to the subtleties of Stoicism, Admiral Slovo wasn’t ready for all that was being lavished on him; but he was growing by the second and very shortly he would understand all. And so forgive all.
And then someone forced a liquid down his rebelling throat and recalled him to life. Faster than man would travel until the invention of jets, Slovo shot back into his body and reoccupied the casing he had hoped to escape. In some inexpressible way, he didn’t seem to ‘fit’ it quite as well as before.
The naked Vehmic girl was astride his chest, hammering rhythmically on it with her fists until, after a lapse of seconds, he began to feel the blows. He also realized that his mouth was rinsed in something vile and he tried to spit it out. The girl smiled at him and ceased her efforts.
‘Welcome back,’ she said. ‘They almost all do that, you know – try to spew the life potion out. It won’t do you good, I made sure you swallowed a good dose.’ She arched over him and pressed one ear to his ribs. ‘No,’ she said triumphantly. ‘I’ve got it going properly again. You’re back for good.’ Then she skipped away.
Admiral Slovo didn’t know what to feel – the first wrenching wave of loss proved to be bearable due to his revived Stoic capabilities, and that was good news. Less happy was the realization that he was losing full recollection of his journey into light. Like a sandcastle in combat with the tide, he felt more and more of the precious insights being washed away each second, until he was left with nothing.
It took him an hour to get out of the maze, for its twists and spirals had been designed by a mind of even greater deviousness than his own. Twice on the way he encountered the bodies of initiates who had succumbed to the poison in the well. Perhaps the Vehmic maid had been unable to call them back from death, or maybe she’d merely failed to find them. To Slovo, such carelessness with their charges only emphasized the profundity of the role his employers had arranged for him.
As he emerged from the maze into the blinding light of central stage, he entered a high-ceilinged circular room thronged with people, once again a highly cosmopolitan crowd, dotted here and there with initiates more maze-adaptive than he.
A corpulent man in a turban offered the Admiral a drink. ‘Imbibe without reservation, brother,’ he said, in faultless Italian. ‘This liquid contains no untoward additives.’
Slovo politely tasted the wine. It was fit for a Prince and rushed straight to his head.
Enver Pasha – Turk and Vehmist – courteously allowed Slovo a moment to look around and collect himself. He noticed the Admiral’s attention was particularly taken by the great globe above, which illuminated the room. ‘To some we explain nothing,’ he said. ‘To you, we are safe in confiding that it is an effect of the heating of steam. A minor part of our knowledge, it serves to impress either way.’
‘I can see many uses for it in the outside world,’ said Slovo. ‘If you’ll excuse the play on words, I wonder why you chose to hide your light under a bushel?’
The Turk shrugged and smiled with a flash of gold. ‘There may come a time for its wider application,’ he agreed, ‘but by then it will be our time and we will have no need for concealment. In the interim, what we have, we keep.’
‘Ah … of course,’ said Slovo, as though this was a damning revelation. He’d wanted to coax this confession of pettiness from the Vehmist.
‘And that is the one lesson you must absorb today,’ the Turk went on. ‘From now on, you are we, and we are everything. Loyalty will come with the passing years but in the meanwhile let self-restraint, fear and respect serve the same ends.’
A steward offered them dainty refreshments, at which Slovo’s starved taste buds leapt into vibrant life. He wolfed down three of the pastry envelopes before he was able to control himself and say, ‘I recognize that man.’
The Vehmist turned and seemingly noticed the retreating serving-man for the first time.
‘Doubtless,’ he replied. ‘He is a Bishop and often in Rome.’
‘I hope,’ said Slovo, reserving several options by temporarily casting his glance to the garish mosaic floor, ‘that you do not expect me to wait on table like a lackey.’
Again Enver Pasha smiled. His voice had no kindness in it. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You are higher in our favours than he, more pregnant with … possibilities. However, if it were our wish that you should serve refreshments, that is what you would do.’
Slovo declined the implicit challenge by looking about. The party was becoming quite convivial and, as the Admiral’s allotted host, Enver Pasha did not wish his charge to be a conspicuous abstainer from his communal spirit. He stepped in to mend the conversational thread.
‘How was your near-death-experience, Admiral?’ he asked politely. ‘If you do not mind to speak of it, that is. Some people prefer not.’
‘It was very interesting, thank you,’ replied Slovo, both answering and rebuffing further enquiry. ‘I take it that it was all your doing.’
‘Oh, of course,’ said the Vehmist. ‘A mere matter of poison followed by an antidote, both in horse-doses. We find there’s no equal to it in shaking a person loose from their foundations and making them receptive to new ideas. Naturally there’s a wastage rate …’
‘But you reckon the exercise worthwhile, even so,’ Admiral Slovo completed the sentence for him, not wishing, for obscure reasons, to hear it from the Turk’s own lips.
Enver Pasha looked for hints of criticism in Slovo’s speech before replying, but could detect none. ‘Just so,’ he said. ‘I presume that you saw the Universal Light – that’s the commonest formulation for monotheists. I shouldn’t attach any great importance to it, nor to any visions of loved ones coming to greet you. It is merely the last gambit of the dying mind, coping with its terror by recalling the passage to birth and freeing itself of the burden of memory. At least, that’s what we presume.’
Enver Pasha suddenly noticed, by a stiffening of the Slovo spine, that he had caused offence. He knew then that something Slovo had seen on the brink of oblivion had touched his heart. ‘Still, it’s over now,’ he said hastily. ‘Make of it what you will.’