the stars. He looked deep into the idiosyncrasies of other creatures, the chemistry of healing, and the nature of disease. Most important, his thought embraced the relationship of language to life and the shape of the mind. He was a geometer, dreamer, and diviner—a maker of medicines and occult machines. One legend says he could even raise and animate the dead.”
“That sounds like an awful lot for one man to know,” Lloyd said, whistling.
“Yes!” agreed Mother Tongue. “That was his most insightful idea of all. The necessity of camouflage to survive. The need to appear to be many men instead of one, and the need to become many men—and women, too—in order to make his ideas live.”
“How do you know that he was just one man?”
Mother Tongue stroked the cat. The coon dog never moved.
“The same has been asked of many,” she answered. “There is a view that all the great figures of inspiration—Socrates, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Zoroaster—do not represent individual historical figures but, rather, are code names for composite characters uniting the thoughts and visions of many people. There is no way to prove or disprove the actual life of Spiro now, for he chose always to hide in the shadows, and so his reputation and his achievements have been relegated to the shadows of history. But upon this skeleton of shadows most of what we know of as the modern world has developed.
“He traveled widely—to Rome and the deserts of Arabia. Jerusalem, Baghdad, Alexandria, and deep into Europe—India and China, too. His knowledge he passed on to carefully chosen pupils who were sworn to secrecy. Magicians, physicians, alchemists, philosophers, architects, engineers, and artists. To each of them he gave a piece of the master puzzle, one fragment of what he called the Great Enigma.”
“Why?”
“So no one individual or even generation ended up knowing the master goal—they only knew the pieces they had been entrusted with and the implications that flowed from them. This protected the Great Enigma, for if one person or school failed, for whatever reason, to pass on or build on their knowledge, there was always the hope that others would survive and continue the work.”
“What happened to him?” Lloyd asked, leaning forward. “When did he die?”
“In one sense, he never did,” Mother Tongue replied. “Because we are talking about him now and still coming to terms with his thought and deeds. But in the sense you mean, what happened to the one man is lost in the puzzle that he created. What happened to the many men and women that he became—that is much better known. Because, you see, it was inevitable that the pieces of the puzzle would seek each other out and try to form the Whole.”
“How do you mean?” Lloyd asked, and was surprised when the ancient woman gestured toward the wall of the cabin behind her. He could have sworn that the wall was bare before, but now it showed a map of the world that seemed to glow and swirl like the marvelous lights that had illuminated the crusted boat upon his arrival.
Mother Tongue cleared her throat, as if savoring the taste of her phlegm.
“From the sands of Egypt to what is now Italy and France, Holland, Germany, and the forests of Northern Europe, England and Ireland, all the way to the Orient, the lineage of the students of Spiro’s teachings coalesced to form a confederacy with the grand design of unifying magic, religion, and science to lead mankind to the fulfillment of the destiny he foresaw. Many of the greatest minds and prime movers of Western culture were later Spiro’s followers, bound to secrecy by the oath of the Order. Paracelsus, Nicholas of Cusa, Raleigh, Bacon, Van Leeuwenhoek, Pascal, Lavoisier—and countless others who remain unknown. The names and contributions are so entangled in history that it is impossible to separate the individuals and the strands. Cosmographers and mapmakers joined the Order. Noblemen and divines. Caliphs and rajas. The Spirosians infiltrated the Catholic Church, the Jewish merchant-finance networks, and the cabalistic enclaves—even the dynasties of distant China. They directed emperors and later formed the major craft guilds. They sponsored secret expeditions of discovery.
“Through oblique channels, it was Spiro’s thought that lit the fire that fueled the Renaissance and allowed the birth of science, and later inspired the Spirosians to take key steps that led to both the French and American revolutions. From the Great Pyramids to Trafalgar Square, Mecca to Monticello, his influence has been felt. But secrecy and