No words of congratulations. No recognition of any kind.

When the last of them was seated, the princeps removed the shawl from his head and placed it around his shoulders, the face of John Joseph Blaney now revealed to the assemblage. “Let us recall the Primal Aeons,” he said; the gathering rose. “The Deep,” Blaney began.

“The perfect parent, prior source, and ancestor,” they responded.

“Silence.”

“The betrothed. Thought, loveliness.”

“The Intellect.”

“The only-begotten, the parent and source of the entirety.”

“Truth.”

“The betrothed.”

“The Word.”

“The parent and source of fullness.”

“Life.”

“The betrothed.”

“The Human Being.”

“The Human Being.”

“The church.”

“The betrothed.”

“These are the Primal Aeons. Through them, we bind our wills to Your knowledge; through our knowledge, we are bound to Your will. In the Father of Greatness, who resides in the realm of Light. In the Power of the cosmos, who brings our salvation. In the Wisdom of the ages, who returns us to the wholeness of our church.”

“In the Father, the Power and the Wisdom.”

Blaney stepped back to a small podium at center. “And let us recall the ‘Perfect Light, the True Ascent.’”

As one, the voices began:

“It is from the perfect light, the true ascent that I am found in those who

seek me.

Acquainted with me, you come to yourselves, wrapped in the light to

rise to the aeons.

For I will illumine in your illumination;

I will ascend in your ascension;

I will unite in your union.

It is I who am the riches of the light;

It is I who am the memory of the fullness….”

The boy continued to chant, his mind wandering as the words flowed freely. For as long as he could remember, he had committed the prayers to memory, the rituals that had prepared him for today, his father as guide. Always in strict isolation, so different from the shallowness of Sunday, when he would watch his father play the role of minister, stand behind his pulpit and preach words that seemed so far from the truth.

As his mind drifted, so, too, did his gaze, faces all around him, many of which he recognized from neighboring towns-Davenport, Kenton, Elmsford-none of which he had ever associated with the private world he and his father had shared.

Until today.

The journey north to the elect. The day of illumination. Entrance into his cell.

Everything would change now. He had been told as much. How, he didn’t know. Standing among his brothers, reciting the “Perfect Light,” it didn’t seem to matter.

Eeema, Eeema, Ayo.

The fruit was all but gone, the bowl of loukoumi licked clean. He’d been hungrier than he’d realized, the confection far better than he’d expected.

Waiting for the last of the paraffin lamps to flicker out, Pearse donned the robe and stepped out into the open-air corridor, a tree-lined atrium three stories below. The sleeves hung a bit too long, though an ideal spot, he discovered, to conceal the notes he had with him. Not that he was anticipating anything, but best to have the pages out of sight should someone appear. Looking to minimize that chance, he kept his lantern dark as he moved past the other cells, the monks either asleep or oblivious to his late-night wanderings.

With one hand flat against the wall, he inched his way back to the stairs, the moon having broken through, making all but the last few steps relatively painless. Once outside the dormitory walls, he found a darkened nook and fired up the lantern, careful to keep it low at his knees. No bonnet, no beard, but at least with the lantern shining out-and not up-he could see where he was going without casting any light on his upper body.

As quickly as he could, he began to retrace his steps through the various alleys and courtyards, one or two cats leaping out at inopportune moments to accelerate an already-lively heartbeat. But no monks. Even so, he found himself moving ever more stealthily, reduced to tiptoes for the last twenty yards or so, the area by the fountain far more exposed than he’d remembered.

Reaching the protective shadow of the great doors, he paused to reorient himself.

The collection of buildings he had seen earlier now appeared to meld into one another, a kind of flattened crescent, the moon offering just enough of a gloss to bring them into focus. Likewise, the water splashed in an ivory white, its lapping reflection trapped within the fountain walls, the area just beyond its reach somehow darker by contrast than the rest of the courtyard. Drawn in by the tranquillity of the scene, he began to feel far more attuned to the design of the monastery. Granted, he had only a small portion of it in front of him, but the discrepancies between Angeli’s map and the actual layout seemed to melt away, the spacing far less compact, readable, a growing sense that perhaps he might be able to locate the signposts specified in the scroll. Or maybe it was just faith. Or the fact that the mist had lifted. Either way, he retrieved the pages from his sleeve, glanced at the first few, and set off.

It was remarkable how much she had teased from the text, or rather, how much the Manichaeans had been able to hide within their prayer. Half the notes on Photinus detailed landmarks chosen for what was, no doubt, their staying power: bends in the outer wall, ancient pieces of stonework planted deep in the earth, rises and falls in terrain that no amount of building or digging could disrupt. Those things that they knew would endure.

And, of course, as Angeli had promised, the distances between them.

Following the line of the wall to his left, he counted off the prescribed thirty-five paces to an arched hollow directly across from a small olive orchard, just as the notes described. Truth to tell, it had been thirty-one, but given the likelihood that he was a good deal taller than his tenth-century counterpart, Pearse quickly reasoned away the disparity. With that in mind, he shortened his gait, and arrived at the next landmark with extraordinary precision-“time placed in stone”-the first of two sundials situated at opposite ends of a garden at the orchard’s center. Both sprouted an assortment of paths, only one of them leading up a short incline. It was the one he was meant to take, out beyond the orchard fence, past a natural spring, to the edge of the monastery’s outer wall.

It was there that he met his first setback. For several minutes, he couldn’t find a series of steps described as “notches in the great partition.” His hands traced the wall face as Pearse became more and more concerned that he was somehow overlooking something. Struggling with a thick matting of overgrown saplings, he finally unearthed the first step, then the second, the rest of them so cleverly imbedded in the wall that had he not known what he was looking for, he would have missed them entirely. Even as he climbed, he needed his hands to feel out each one in front of him, lantern light insufficient to the task. Halfway up, he slowly realized that if not for the steps, he would never have been able to find his way past a group of buildings-thirteenth- or fourteenth-century, by his estimation-situated along the wall. How the Manichaeans had known to avoid what must have been open land back in the tenth century was anybody’s guess. He continued to climb.

A gust of wind swept up as he reached the top of the wall, his hand quick to the stone face to steady himself. Momentarily staggered, he found it impossible not to stare out at the horizon, an explosion of stars so vast that he was forced to drop to one knee lest he lose himself over the edge. The Aegean swelled some three hundred feet below, its rhythm in strict counterpoint to the endless array of glitter quivering above. He tried to regain his feet, but his body refused, once again beguiled by the perfect synchrony of light and darkness. For all his doubts-his fears of a Manichaean ascetic-Pearse had, at least, come to appreciate its singular truth, palpable at a moment like this.