The suitcase turned out to hold a single, sturdy cardboard box, which filled almost the entire interior. Rather than wrestle it out of the case, at the probable cost of leaving a pool of blue blood on Hyland's floor, Ben decided to open it where it was.
The first sight that greeted him was a note - whose handwriting, he was ashamed to admit, he wouldn't have recognized. But he was soon left in no doubt as to the writer's identity.
Ben (Hack Scudder began),
If you've inherited these documents, I regret to inform you that you are now in possession of stolen property. I filched them from a Templar Lodge in Loving, New Mexico. But I hope you won't lose sleep over it. If the documents are of value to anyone, it's to us Avatars, not a bunch of pseudo-Templars who've forgotten their mission.
"Holy books," Ben remembered Frank Mooney saying. "Gospels." That meant more than one. More than the Gospel of Matthias that was the Avatars' Bible.
I'll tell you at the outset what isn't here. Don't look for the legendary "Sauniere Manuscript," which I'm rumored to own! I checked out the legends, and discovered they grew out of a hoax. A French priest named Sauniere made a fortune by shady means, mostly by charging exorbitant fees for services the Church should provide gratis. Then, being a devilish sort, he spread rumors that he'd found an ancient manuscript whose startling contents enabled him to blackmail the Vatican. It never happened. Spurious "Sauniere Manuscripts" show up from time to time, but they're claptrap anyone could cobble together, not based on inside knowledge of anything.
Unfortunately, this box also doesn't contain the Gospel of Matthias. I had it, and a false friend stole it from me. That's the ancient writing believed to hold the most significance for Avatars. I mastered most of its secrets before I lost it. I realize that doesn't help you any. But the good news here is that while Matthias is the most important book, it's also the one that's survived in the most copies. You may already have read it.
Ben nodded; he had. Remembering Belyakov's extensive library, he began to wonder if there was anything of value here that would be new to him.
I've had these other books and papers for years now, and haven't made much headway in evaluating them. Matthias was in English translation, but the others are in languages I don't understand, at least not well. And it's possible that only a few lines buried in a document are important, with the rest being filler included to hide the significant passages and discourage seekers from hunting for them. It's also possible that nothing here is important!
But on the plus side, I'm not giving you crumbling papyrus to puzzle over. The originals of these works are said to be ancient, but you're seeing 19th-century printed copies.
Good luck, Ben. You'll be looking at them with young, fresh eyes. And I'm confident that if something is buried in here that you need to know, you'll find it.
Your loving father,
Henry Scudder
Ben didn't share Hack's confidence. He had only a tenth-grade education, and he'd barely scraped through that. He had no idea where to find foreign-language dictionaries (Hack hadn't left any lying around). There might not be dictionaries for ancient, dead tongues. What was he supposed to do - devote decades of his life to this translation project, only to find out either that there was nothing of value here, or that it duplicated material he'd already seen in Belyakov's English translations?
But then he thought of something. There'd been at least three words in Hack's note that were completely unfamiliar to him...he looked back to verify it, and found them quickly. Exorbitant. Gratis. Spurious. He couldn't define those words, couldn't use any of them in a sentence. But when he'd seen them in context, he'd understood exactly what his father meant.
Could that be Belyakov's boon kickin' in, finally bein' o' some use?
Given that scant encouragement, he began sifting through the hoard of documents. "Documents" was a good catchall term. There were two properly bound books, four whose bindings had just about fallen off, and a dozen clumps of paper held together with string, ribbons, and in one case, a shoelace. Despite their dating "only" from the previous century, all were stained, moldy, and smelly.
God gimme strength.
But as he settled down on the floor to examine them in more detail, he felt a heightening excitement that he couldn't explain. Was some psychic sense telling him there really was a priceless needle in this haystack?
As he leafed through the collections, he found he could recognize Latin and Greek words here and there, though not any others. So Belyakov had some knowledge o' Latin an' Greek.
And for a time he encountered marginal notes in what he now knew was Hack Scudder's handwriting. Almost without exception, they expressed discouragement. He wasn't surprised when they ceased to appear.
Hack had apparently spent a great deal of time - most of it fruitlessly - on each document before he proceeded to the next. It seemed he'd never gotten to the bottom of the box. Ben, on the other hand, was determined to start by giving everything a quick once-over, regardless of how hard it might be to repack them.
And so it happened that he lifted out the bottommost stack of ribbon-bound paper, and discovered that at least parts of it featured parallel columns of Latin with the English translation. There was also an insert - written in a crabbed hand by one Charles Collins, and dated by him 1850 - that provided the first genuine commentary Ben had seen.
Collins wrote:
Among all the cliches and doubletalk, there appear to be three passages here that relate to the Avataric struggle. I don't fully understand how they relate, but I believe they do.
The first Passage.
These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.
I think we can assume Jesus has nothing to do with this. It's Didymos Judas Thomas with whom we should be concerned.
I'll say in passing that other Templars have claimed the spelling "Didymos" proves this Gospel was written in Greek, like most of its era. But I tend to believe Latin was the original language, "Didymus" changed to "Didymos" by a later copyist.
Many Apocrypha refer to Judas Thomas. This is not a reference to the betrayer, but to another Apostle by the same name, usually called Jude to differentiate.
Ben shook his head, reflecting, Jeez. Only a little while ago I was rememberin' how I resented havin' the same name as a traitor, an' the only worse name I could think of was Judas! How creepy is that?
The Hebrew name Judas actually means "praised" (the Commentary went on), a good meaning. More significantly, Thomas is from the Aramaic, and means "twin." There are legends that hold that the supposed two Apostles named Jude and Thomas were one and the same man, and that he was Jesus' lookalike twin brother.
Ben blinked in bewilderment. Sayin' that, an' he claims Jesus ain't important here?
That almost certainly is not historical fact (the dry Commentary continued). This passage is relevant because it's been held from time immemorial that Avatars are symbolically mirror-image twins, and because the passage refers - apparently for the first time ever - not just to Judas Thomas but to Didymos Judas Thomas. Didymos is the Greek word for "twin." So we're seeing Twin Judas Twin. Why must it be explained twice, and by means of such an awkward word order, that Judas is (supposedly) someone's twin?
I sense a connection with Avataric lore, but the nature of the connection eludes me.
Ben sat back and thought. The only theory he'd heard concerning the origin of Avatars was Belyakov's. Supposedly, angels loyal to God and Satan had been battling in the heavens, wounding one another, and their blood had rained down on the earth. God had then fashioned the first, full-grown Avatar from the earth's clay soil, and blood come down from the heavens. He'd wanted this Light Avatar merely to instruct and help humans. But Satan, seeing what He'd done, used the same method to fashion the first Dark Avatar, a mirror image of the Creature of Light. And ever since, Avatars' agendas had consisted mostly of warring against each other. Because God and Satan had been unable to separate the two kinds of blood used in the creation of the first pair, any Avatar was capable of fathering either Light or Dark offspring.
As the Tattooed Man was destined to be the Omega - it had been thought, either the latter-born or the survivor of his pair - it was sometimes said that the first-created of the original pair could be called the Alpha. A beginning in Light and end in Darkness. Symmetrical. Dispiriting, perhaps. But was not every day fated to begin in light and end in darkness?
Now Ben was thinking, That warn't never "revealed." Just a theory. Why couldn't it be that the first pair had a father an' mother - got born, just like all us later Avatars, an' came out o' the womb bein' mirror-image twins?
Maybe what this Gospel thing is meant to show is two male twins standin' to one side or t'other o' their father! All male names, all in a row...if the pa was put higher, it'd suggest he was God. But he ain't on a higher level than his sons, or a lower one either. Meanin' he's some kind o' Avatar, just like them!
Amazed at his temerity in having come up with such an idea, he plunged back into the document and Collins' commentary. My notion'll prob'ly get shot down before I finish another paragraph.
The second Passage.
The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will be." Jesus said, "Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death."
Ben stared at the passage, read it over and over. Is it sayin' the end - whatever the Usher, or the Omega if we want to call him that, is gonna bring about - won't be the final end? That it'll be followed by a new beginnin'?
For some reason, the lines gave him goosebumps. Why? He certainly didn't want an end! An end to Avatars, maybe, but the prophecies he'd heard seemed to be referring to more than that. To the end of humanity, or at least of civilization. It's Belyakov's bomb vision that should be givin' me the shivers, not talk of a new beginnin'.
He'd realized that he now had enough knowledge of Latin to judge the accuracy of some translations. So before even looking at Collins' commentary, he let his eyes drift back and forth between the columns of Latin and English.
And a Latin word leapt out at him, so suddenly that it made him yelp.
"Benedictus?"
But of course, that was the equivalent of the English word "blessed"...
He looked back at the English line: Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death.
As Commentary on it, Collins had written:
Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning?
"Blessed" is he who will take his place in the beginning?
Benedict is he who will take his place in the beginning!
Ben dropped the page as if it had burned him. His instinctive reaction was to cry out mentally No, no! He'd done enough, had enough done to him, already. He didn't want another special role, no matter what it might entail!
Charles Collins was a nutcase, he told himself. This crap ain't got nothin' to do with Avatars.
But then, why had he detected something so relevant in Collins' "first Passage"?
I went into it expectin' to find somethin', that's all. An' to do it, I had to stand what I know 'bout Avatars on its head. So that don't prove nothin'.
But his name was Benedict...
"Blessed" in that Passage prob'ly just means blessed, if any of it means anythin' at all. Collins was goin' out on a limb by guessin' it might refer to a man who was actually named "Blessed."
There ain't nothin' special 'bout me. I wouldn't even exist if Belyakov - a Light Avatar - had succeeded in killin' my pa back in the War. I'm only alive 'cause he let a stupid bear get in his way.
But the coincidence of the names Judas and Benedict nagged at him. As he himself had imagined it, the first Passage had depicted the first Light-Dark pair of Avatars flanking another male Avatar who was their father. A man whose name was an embarrassment, because it was the same one borne by a traitor.
If he, Ben Hawkins, was truly meant to "take his place in" a future "beginning," the implication was that he too would father a Light-Dark pair of Avatars. And he, their father, would bear a name identified with that of a traitor.
Maybe the pa o' the first Light-Dark pair warn't really named Judas. Could that name o' been picked to use here, like a symbol, to make me see a parallel with me?
But why imagine I'm so important? If this stuff does deal with Avatars, it could be a different Benedict.
Except for the fact that he was the Light Avatar destined from birth to combat the Usher of Destruction. And even before his birth, his father had somehow been told what to name him.
"No, no!" He was tearing his hair now, screaming aloud."This is a damn coincidence, nothin' to do with our kind at all! How could I - how could any man - raise two kids like that, knowin' one was Light an' the other Dark? It's never happened, never will happen!"
A damn coincidence, nothin' to do with our kind at all... But what about the eerie prophecy that this "blessed" one would never experience death? Ben had thought it strange that he hadn't died when his Texas cousins buried him alive. He still suspected Evander Geddes really had covered his face with plaster of paris, leaving him no airway; he hadn't suffocated then, either. And he'd tried to tell himself that he hadn't bled to death in the cornfield because his abdominal wound had been pressed against Justin's body; but knowing he actually had lost a great deal of blood, he found it hard to believe.
All Avatars were hardier than other men, could endure more before it would kill them. Was he different from other Avatars? At this point, he wasn't sure. But it would be a cruel irony if Justin could be killed in only one narrowly defined way, otherwise never injured at all...whereas he could be gravely wounded, maimed, yet never know the release of death.
He dropped to his knees and raised his eyes to the window. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he said softly, "I done my share for this cause. Followed the rules, killed the Usher. It ain't my fault he had a son to bring him back - how could I o' stopped it, even if I'd known? I done my share, wrecked my health in the process. Ain't that enough?"
x
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x
And then, suddenly, he found himself back in...St. Dymphna's Chapel, he realized.
As before, a cleric knelt with his back to him, praying in Latin before a statue of the Madonna holding the Christ Child. The Madonna had no eyes, and as the cleric droned on, in Justin Crowe's voice, a bruised and battered Christ Child reached out plaintively toward Ben.
Ben understood the vision better than he had before. He realized his grandmother Emma Scudder was blind, and knew what a warped childhood his father had experienced with her and his decadent cousins. He could appreciate that this was in part a plea for him to "rescue" Hack, and in a sense, the whole benighted clan.
But on a deeper level, he perceived now that the Christ Child - representing the Christian faith - was appealing to him to save that faith from wicked "men of God" who sought to pervert its teachings, and "blind" Church administrators who failed to see what was happening.
But it ain't my fight! I've done all I can, given all I have in me...
No one answered. But as he stood silently weeping, he began, for the first time, truly to listen to "Justin's" rendering of the Latin prayer. Thanks to his boon, he now knew what the man was saying.
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.
Benedictu in mulieribus, et benedicta fructus ventris tui Jesu.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
Nunc et in mortis nostrae. Amen.
Repeated, over and over.
But he's sayin' it wrong, Ben realized. Three different places, an' he keeps makin' the same mistakes.
The mistakes didn't turn the prayer into a joke or an obscenity; they were just annoying. Sure to catch and hold the attention of anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Latin.
"Benedictu" don't mean nothin'. He's supposed to be sayin' "Benedicta tu" - two words, meanin' "blessed art thou," addressed to a woman.
"Benedicta fructus ventris" - here he should be sayin' "benedictus." It means "blessed is the fruit o' thy womb," but the gender o' "benedictus" an' "fructus" gotta agree.
An' it should be "Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae" - "Now an' at the hour of our death." Leavin' out "hora" makes it "Now an' at of our death." Sloppy in any language.
Was that the whole point, to show the cleric's evil intent through his inability to say the prayer correctly?
Or was distracting jargon being used to conceal a nugget of truth?
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.
Benedictu in mulieribus...
On and on.
Until, in what could have been his tenth repetition of the prayer, the cleric spun around. And his face was not Justin's, but was austere and ancient and aglow with an inner light. His eyes caught and held Ben's.
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum!
Benedict, tu...
And Ben, snapping out of the vision with a terrified gasp, heard what he'd been meant to hear all along.
"Benedict...thou!"
x
x
x
When he was able to stop shaking, he wiped his tears away and thought resignedly, All right. I may feel washed up, but God's still got a plan for me. I got a callin'.
It seems to involve more than just killin' Justin. So I reckon I am the one who "takes his place" in this new beginnin'. An' if it means I'll father Light an' Dark twins ...I'll worry 'bout that when I come to it.
He was exhausted. But he decided to read a little more of the ancient text, and Collins' commentary. That shouldn't take long, since Collins had found only three passages relevant.
The third Passage.
Jesus said, "Blessed is he who came into being before he came into being. ... [T]here are five trees for you in Paradise which remain undisturbed summer and winter and whose leaves do not fall. Whoever becomes acquainted with them will not experience death."
With the predictable Commentary:
Benedict is he who came into being before he came into being!
Who knows, Ben thought wearily, maybe I did. If an ancient text referred to me, an' my pa was told what to name me before I was born, maybe I existed the same way the Tattooed Man did. A concept? Or more than that?
He was intrigued by the idea of the five trees, "whose leaves do not fall." Justin has one big tree tattooed on his chest. I never seen his back, but most o' the pictures an' visions I've seen o' the Tattooed Man's back show four more trees there. 'Course, they're all leafless an' dead...
By now he was almost too tired to think straight. But as he collapsed on the cot that must have been his father's, his last waking thought was, Could it be that Justin's the Usher o' Destruction, an' I'm the Usher o'...New Creation?
x
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x
"Ben? Are you OK in there, son?"
Ben woke with a start. "Wh-what?"
He needed a few seconds to remember where he was, then a few more to realize that the angle of the light streaming in through the window meant it was midmorning. He sat up - with the usual grimaces of pain - and called out, "I'm fine, thank'ee, Mr. Hyland. Just overslept."
"That's no problem. I just wanted to make sure you're all right. Take your time - and call me Samuel!"
Five minutes later a still bleary-eyed Ben stumbled out of the office. "Have you got, uh, a bathroom?"
"Of course." Hyland was smiling. "It's right down at the end of the hall there." He pointed. "And then I can fix you some breakfast."
"I've decided I won't be able to stay, Mr. - Samuel. I really woulda liked to." That was the truth. "But I got...responsibilities."
The older man's face fell, but only slightly. "I'm disappointed, but I can't say as I'm surprised. Don't worry - after you've cleaned yourself up, that offer of breakfast still stands."
Ben glanced down the hall, then back at the room he was leaving. "Can you watch my stuff?"
"I'll be here. But better than that, you can lock the door from the outside and take the key with you."
So Ben took the key and his duffel bag, which contained shaving gear and a change of clothes. Not exactly clean clothes, but at least he hadn't just slept in them.
He peered at himself in the bathroom mirror. Ugh. The beard has to go. But at this point, washing came first. He stripped off his shirt, with the usual struggle to get his bum left arm out of it. Then he glanced back at the mirror - and almost choked.
I'm seein' a vision in the mirror. A vision. That's all it is, all it can possibly be -
But his desperately probing fingers proved it was no vision.
He'd slept all night in a room locked from the inside. And he'd wakened in the same position in which he'd gone to sleep: fully dressed, shirt buttoned up to his collar, with the precious Gospel - stained and moldy and smelly though it was - serving as a pillow. No one could have gotten to him, no one could have done anything to him.
But his chest was now festooned with a tattoo. A very real tattoo - of a tree as large as Justin's, but covered with iridescent leaves!
His bumbling fingers managed to get his shaving mirror out of his duffel bag without breaking it, and he used it in tandem with the wall mirror to get a look at his back.
By the time he'd positioned the mirror, he thought he was prepared for what he'd see. But the rainbow-hued glow of four more shimmering trees, reflected back by the wall mirror, took his breath away.
Resisting the urge to drop to his knees - which would have broken the connection between mirrors - he simply stood there for an hour, lost in awestruck prayer.
If any unfortunate needed to use the locked bathroom, he failed to hear.
x
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The End
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Author's Afterword: The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas is of course real, as are the quotations taken from it. It's the one Gnostic work Carnivale creator Daniel Knauf acknowledges having read. But barring secret transmission by an order such as the Templars, it would not have been available to anyone in the 1930s.
A further note: Fans eventually learned Mr. Knauf's plan didn't involve Ben's fathering twins, or having a predestined role to play after 1945.