Chapter Ten – Lessons for Life after Death

“How’s it possible?” Adam gasped. “How could you possibly be the same age as me?”

“This is merely an assumed form.”

“Assumed?” Adam was stunned to think that the apparently grown man standing in front of him was actually his own age. “But why?”

“In your experience, how many people trust and believe a fourteen-year-old boy?” D’Scover asked.

Adam gulped a deep breath and slumped down hard on the couch. “But I . . . I don’t understand,” he blurted. “You’re old, you must be, the way you talk and everything.”

“I have been here for a very long time, but when I died, I assure you I was no older than you. I too had no family; my mother died of plague and I was taken to a monastery hospice. I almost died, but for some reason the disease passed through me and I survived. I was given to one of the monks and was raised by him and the kitchen staff,” he explained. “I spent my short life surrounded by the monks and remember no other existence, or other children. After my death I did not stop growing mentally, I simply stopped growing physically, and I have been here a very long time. Time has taught me many things, death has not stopped me learning and I have had a great deal of time in which to learn.”

D’Scover turned back to the piled fragments of the shattered bowl on the floor and looked sadly at it. He knelt down and began to pick up the pieces and gather them in his hand. The fragile broken sections began to form a sharp-edged pile.

“I’m so sorry,” Adam repeated. “Can’t you fix it?”

“When something like this is broken, it is broken for ever,” D’Scover replied. “I can no more restore it than restore life to you.”

He walked to the desk and tipped the remains of the bowl into the rubbish bin before returning to his seat and waiting for Adam to speak again.

“I didn’t mean to . . .” Adam apologised. “I can’t explain. I feel so hurt about it all. I didn’t even die with a name. I mean, how bad is that?”

“I too died without a name,” D’Scover said as he dusted off his hands.

“But you’ve got a name.”

“No, I have a name that was given to me when I recovered enough to be put to work,” he said softly. “My mother died without speaking and the sisters wrote upon my blanket, ‘Name to be discovered’. Do you see? To be discovered – Toby D’Scover. It amused Father Dominic to call me Toby afterwards and it is the name I died with.”

“But the monks, they must’ve been like a family?”

“Monastic life is very hard, Adam, and not for a young boy. I slept on a cold floor and ate only table scraps; what extra I had I stole. Like you, I spent my time in the safety of the library and I taught myself to read to try and find a way of escape. We have much in common – but I died in the heat of a fever and you died in the cold.”

“How are you like this? How did you join the Brotherhood?” Adam asked.

“Do you remember the images I showed you of the foundation of the Brotherhood, the Hypnagogic visions?”

“How could I forget?” Adam shuddered at the memory.

“And you recall the boy who fled the abbey with the texts stuffed into his cloak?”

“That was you!” Adam gasped. “You were the first, the first to use the Ritual; they tested it on you as you died of your fever.”

“Excellent guess,” D’Scover said nodding.

“Why aren’t you the boss then?” Adam asked. “Shouldn’t you be in charge of the Brotherhood if you were the first agent?”

“I think that you already know the answer to that question.”

“Not because of your age?”

“Exactly that. I was not considered to be of a suitable age to lead the Brotherhood; that honour was given to others some years later. The Brotherhood was led by the living, the monks, for just under a century until more suitable candidates were found. That is why there remains an agreement for living agents within the Brotherhood. I am considered an authority on certain historical matters, and I am afforded a certain respect for the time I have spent within the Brotherhood,” D’Scover continued. “This department was given to me just over three hundred years ago to suit my skills.”

“Even though you know everything about the Brotherhood, they still think you’re a kid?” Adam marvelled.

“I am no longer conscious of what the Senior Council think of me; it has been some time since they let me know,” D’Scover said. “I am afforded a great deal of respect within this department and I have perfected a good deal of the technology that the Brotherhood now uses and so I have my niche. I have grown to feel more comfortable with my position over the centuries.”

“Can I see what you look like, for real? I mean as a kid,” Adam pleaded.

“I would rather not,” D’Scover told him. “I have spent many centuries in this form and would rather stay this way. The image you saw in your Hypnagogic state was my death form, so in a way you’ve already seen what I was like.”

D’Scover looked upset by the path this conversation was taking and so Adam searched for a subject to lighten the atmosphere.

“What do you do here?” He clutched at the first question that popped into his head. “I mean, I have a vague idea, passing people over and all that, but you said that this place suited your skills. What are they?” he asked.

“Adam, I have something else to show you,” D’Scover said enigmatically.

He stood and walked to the centre of the room, lifting his hands palm upwards as if he was carrying an invisible tray. He began to murmur a low, repetitive chant and the room darkened as though night had begun to fall. Adam turned to look out of the window and watched thick clouds boil around the building, erasing the view. Turning back, he now realised that D’Scover was immersed in a cloud of his own that started to spiral.

As it whirled before him, Adam could make out shapes in the vortex. Letters first, single letters in an elegant brush script, then whole words in a language that he did not recognise. They began to gather in front of D’Scover and, with a scratching of quill on paper, they rolled themselves out on to the book, taking shape in D’Scover’s arms.

The book began to gain substance until it was the most solid thing in the whole spiralling mass. Shimmering with gold leaf that caught the dying light of the day, ornate illuminated text spread out to fill each page as though the vines that decorated the pages grew like a living plant. Gradually the pages ceased their fluttering and the book lay wide open like a tamed bird in D’Scover’s outstretched hands. The clouds split apart outside the building and a last yellow shard of winter sun filled the room, bouncing from the gold on the pages.

“The Master Text,” D’Scover said solemnly. “The original, the first.”

“It’s beautiful.” Adam breathed the words in a whisper. “So beautiful, and they gave it to you?”

“I look after it. I am the Keeper of the Texts, this is my calling. I have protected them since I fled with the Master Text as a child. This book contains the Ritual of Sustainment. It has been duplicated successfully since it was written and now each department around the world can use it. This is the Master.”

“So you keep this book; what else?” Adam stared at the book as he spoke.

“I am responsible for most of the practical developments of the techniques outlined in the Master Text. As I was the first, I have had more time to practise Sustainment and I have to admit that I am the most proficient at it. I can sustain my form for a great length of time, longer than any other agent. I have exceptional Hotline skills. I could leave this place and Hotline anywhere in the world and appear as solid and real as a living person. It has been most useful in keeping track of certain psychics and charlatans and for tracing trapped spirits who may need help.”

“Cool,” Adam said. “D’you get a lot of that?”

D’Scover carried the book to the table where the bowl had once rested and laid it reverentially down, smoothing the pages with a stroking motion as though he was calming a pet.

“Not as much as in the past,” he replied without turning back.

“Why not?”

“There is one thing you must understand about the Brotherhood before you decide whether or not to join.” D’Scover joined him on the couch. “This,” he gestured to the room, “is all a question of belief. If enough determined people believe in something, then it is true, simple as that. If enough strong minds believe in heaven and hell, then they exist. Our existence is based on strength of belief, faith, which is what keeps us here. The Texts are a statement of faith; so many have died for them that they are now as real and solid as the stones of St Paul’s. Whilst people believe in an afterlife, we are needed.”

“What if someone doesn’t believe?” Adam ventured.

“Then they die and that is that. They know no different and do not need us,” D’Scover replied. “As time passes and religions diminish, the need for us becomes reduced.”

“Which god do you work for?” Adam asked.

D’Scover smiled a weak and uncomfortable smile. “I have told you before, I am not an angel. How many religions are there, Adam?”

“Loads, hundreds, maybe thousands.”

“And how many gods are there?”

“Must be thousands too.”

“Exactly,” D’Scover replied. “There are as many gods as people believe that there are, and whilst they believe in an afterlife, there is one and some may need help getting there.”

“What about fairies and elves and stuff like that?” Adam asked.

“Once again, it is a question of belief,” he explained. “It is a bit like this book.” He waved his hand and the book rose from its resting place and drifted towards them. “This is a link between the living and the dead, the real and the unreal, if you will. The same can be said of other beliefs: they need a link. Once in a while, someone believes in something so strongly that they can become the link between the solid world that everyone knows and the fragile, intangible world of that which we imagine to be true. A link between here and the World Between.”

“I’m really confused now,” Adam frowned.

“It is like this,” D’Scover continued. “Have you ever heard of the story of the Cottingley Fairies?”

“I think so, read about it in the library.”

“Two young girls living in the English countryside towards the end of the First World War saw fairies dancing by a river at the end of their garden. Those innocent girls believed in the fairies so much that they could actually see them and know them to be real. The country was in the final grip of a brutal war and young men were being killed overseas at an alarming rate. Everyone needed something wonderful to believe in and so the rumour of these fairies began to grow. Belief in them increased and soon they began to take substance, to become real to everyone and not just the girls. A charming story fed the hopes and childhood dreams of a whole country and people so wanted them to be real that they were.”

“I know the story; even that writer believed them, the Sherlock Holmes one, Conan Doyle? But the pictures looked so phoney, how could anyone believe them?”

“The pictures look faked now,” D’Scover said, “but it took a lot of work to do that.”

“You did it?”

“It was a tragic thing to have to do, but the world needed protection from itself. I had to make people believe the children had faked the pictures as a prank. It worked after a while, but in their hearts the girls never really stopped believing.”

“Does it matter?” Adam asked. “Why can’t people just believe what they want to believe? You said yourself it took almost a whole country to make a few fairies, so what difference would it have made if you’d just left it alone?”

“Human history is littered with powerful people who have convinced the masses that their way of thinking was the right one. Imagine if those people could conjure real and solid demons and monsters to do their bidding. What would it do to the world?” D’Scover said darkly. “Hitler came close when he began to search for holy relics. He knew about the Texts and came looking for them. It became a war. The world cannot risk another confrontation on that scale.”

“You expect me to believe that the Second World War was started because Hitler knew about you lot?” Adam said sarcastically.

“There is that word believe again,” D’Scover said. “That war started essentially because he invaded Poland and engineered genocide, but he was also searching for the Texts to form an indestructible army – or so he believed – and that became a war within a war.”

“It’s crazy, all that death and destruction for a book and a bunch of beliefs?”

“Faith, Adam, is the most powerful force on Earth.” D’Scover called the book to his lap and closed it. “It can destroy nations and cast brother against brother. Religious hatred has killed millions around the world throughout history, more than any disease. Our job is to act as gatekeepers and make sure nothing slips between the real and the accepted unreal. We do not take sides, we just prevent – how can I put it – leakage.”

“Hold on, I don’t have a god or believe in any of that stuff, so why did I come here and not just die and be gone?” Adam demanded.

D’Scover took a deep breath before speaking again. “Within the Brotherhood we also have our own beliefs; they are recorded in this book.” He stroked the black leather cover as he spoke and Adam could have sworn that its pages ruffled with pleasure.

“You haven’t answered my question, what are these beliefs? What’s all this got to do with me?” Adam asked.

“Some you already know and they have formed the bare bones of the Brotherhood. That it takes at least three to grieve to pass someone over, that we are here as gatekeepers, that we do not interfere unless the Text allows it, amongst other elements. But some of this book is by way of a Vision.”

D’Scover lifted his hand from the cover and the pages breathed out. The cover opened and pages flicked past, searching for a specific section. Colours streamed before Adam’s eyes as he tried to focus on the fleeting images of flowers and birds and twisted animals seething over each page. Gradually they began to slow down and, with a flourish of dust, settled at a section that was inscribed in thick black ink. Unlike the rest of the book this section was not bordered with gold and green in a vibrant frame, but carried a border of twisted thorns and dead leaves. Between the gaps peered evil-looking faces carrying expressions of such torment that Adam wanted to look away.

“A good amount of it Father Dominic wrote after a series of visions in which he said he talked with the Archangel,” D’Scover continued. “Here the pages tell of how someone will know of the Brotherhood and will use the Texts against us to take control of the living world.”

“Hasn’t that happened? Didn’t Hitler do that?”

“No, Hitler was not the one, although for a time the Senior Council did think that he was. There have been other times too, when demons have walked the Earth and others have been sent out against them, but they are not the cataclysm that the Text speaks of.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because the Text is very specific and no other cases have quite matched the Vision – here, do you see?”

D’Scover skittered through a few more pages and pointed to a section of the page where the ink seemed to be a deep dark brown, like dried blood instead of ink.

“I can’t read that, is it Latin?” Adam squinted at the pages.

“It is partly constructed in Latin and partly in a code of Father Dominic’s creation. The Vision is quite fragmented as we have not broken all of the code, but it goes something like this.” He found the relevant section and began to read aloud.

“In times of chaos, a great weakness – or possibly disaster – will fall upon the Brotherhood. Faith shall weaken – or possibly be destroyed – and many shall be lost for ever to the void. In this confusion of spirits, darkness shall rise silently and take upon a form known to many. This force shall command – we believe this section says demons or possibly a force of evil. This evil one will take hold whilst others look away, but some shall see all and one shall be triumphant.

“The next part is clearer. There shall be three who take on the enemy. The one who overthrows shall have known nothing of the wickedness of the living world and shall have died unsullied by the mire of the living. This innocent shall raise the pure weapon – and then there is another undeciphered part – then it says ‘cast out the demons that rise to overthrow the living world. ’ This will be the Sentinel; ‘their shape will be true and it will be that of a child.”

D’Scover looked up from the book, which slowly closed in his lap, and stared into Adam’s stunned expression.

“It has been a very long time since I have heard these words,” D’Scover told Adam. “The Senior Council have restricted knowledge of the wording of the Vision to prevent anyone from using it to gain control of the Brotherhood. If the wording was common knowledge, someone could fake the portents of the events contained within it. Even the Senior Council have not seen the Master Text for over two centuries and they do not know of the exact location of my library. All of the texts must be protected from opportunists; if anyone knew where they are, it could be catastrophic to the Brotherhood.”

“Why tell me?” Adam asked. “I mean, I don’t know where you keep the books, but I’ve seen this Vision thing. How do you know you can trust me?”

“Adam,” D’Scover’s voice wavered slightly as he spoke, “I have reason to think that you may be the Sentinel.”