Jonathan Rabb - The Book of Q

It had struck him that, perhaps, there was a simple way to find out. Stealing a few minutes on one of the camp’s computers, he’d quietly scanned the Internet for anything on cryptogrammics. Not the most detailed or accurate source, but at least something to give the hunt direction. The result: long, drawn-out lists on the various forms of modern cryptic wordplay, far more than the five categories he was looking for. Procedures called “deletions,” “reversals,” “charades,” and “containers” dominated, each with a quick explanation and an equally simplistic example. Tools for the elite crossword fanatic. The “quaestio lusoria” had clearly come a long way in four centuries. Pearse wondered how many of its modern enthusiasts understood its darker history.

Back in his tent, he had discovered that the two-line (as he had come to refer to those entries in the same category as number two) resembled a charade, albeit in a slightly less straightforward form. The modern version, according to the Internet, required the solver to break the answer into several words, each defined independently: syllables, as it were, of the final charade. For example, “sharpen the pen for truth” had produced the answer “honesty.” The derivation:

hone (sharpen) + sty (pen) = honesty (truth)

A one-to-one relationship. Ribadeneyra had relied on more obscure references, some using only partial words, but all creating longer sequences between the clues and their combining forms, especially when the answer was a phrase rather than a single word. In all cases, though, they required a very creative understanding of a given definition.

To make things even more difficult, Ribadeneyra had rarely chosen to include the answer as part of the clue; he offered no phrases such as “for truth” to hint at the solution. One of his more vexing had read:

Ab initio, surgunt muti in herbam.

Loosely translated:

From the beginning, they rise without speaking into the grass.

Strange as it sounded, it made perfect sense, given the Manichaean influence. In fact, the real mark of Ribadeneyra’s genius was his ability to construct entries that revolved around references to those things that could help set the light free: “rising,” “fruits,” “herbs.”

The answer, Pearse discovered, was “deversoriolum,” the Latin word for “inn.” The derivation had gone quite easily at the start:

DE= from

VER= the beginning (the Latin for the season spring, the beginning of all things)

OLUM= into the vegetable (the accusative form of the word herb, olus , thus olum )

But what of “sori,” stuck in the middle? Here was where Ribadeneyra had shown his special gift (the kindest way Pearse could think to put it). After too many hours tossing the clue around in his head, Pearse had realized that the verb “to rise”-here “surgere” -could be replaced with the Latin sororio (“to swell,” primarily as with milk in a mother’s breast, another appropriate choice, given the metaphor of beginnings and birth). In conjunction with the second-to-last part of the clue, “muti” (“without speaking”), he saw he needed to remove the Latin word for “to speak” (“oro”) , so as to make the combining form, literally, “speechless.” Removing “oro” from “sororio” (with a little tweak) left “sori.” Hence:

De — ver — sori — olum

A lot of work for a three-letter answer.

So it had gone with the three- and four-lines, each a more opaque version of a modern cryptogram, naturally made more difficult by the interplay of Greek and Latin references. The three-line had worked primarily with deletions-single or double letters removed from one word to create another. The Internet example, “headless trident bears fruit,” had given the answer “pear.” The derivation:

spear (trident)? s (its “head”) = pear (fruit)

The most direct of all the categories.

The four-line, however, had proved the most difficult, combining elements from the other three to create the longest phrases. For example, to unearth just the single word “pons” (meaning “bridge”) in one of the answers, he’d had to take the word “pomus” (meaning “fruit tree”), eliminate “the Greek Medusa” and replace it with the “the Roman Neptune.” Here, “the Greek Medusa” had signified the letter Mu -the Greek for M , the first letter in Medusa; “the Roman Neptune” had implied the letter n . Replace mu in “pomus” with n , and you have “pons” -“bridge.”

Granted, the gnosis here wasn’t quite as deviously hidden as with the “Perfect Light”-no letters and cross-references to construct the map. Then again, the earlier Manichaeans had had five centuries to devise their puzzle. Ribadeneyra had taken a few months. An effort certainly worthy of their legacy.

Pearse quickly came to appreciate the beauty of the game, its precision. Everything was there from the start, no landmarks to be found, no mechanisms to be unhinged. A genuine alchemy, the gold trapped within the obscurity of a language waiting for release. A strange taste of the Sola Scriptura . Discovery in its purest form.

Pearse knew Angeli would have needed, at most, a few hours for the entire lot; he had taken the better part of four days. Even when helping with the refugees, he’d been aware that his subconscious was continuing to play with the clues, flashes of understanding bubbling to the surface at the strangest of moments, often a word or two in conversation enough to spark revelation. Though frustrating at times, the process nevertheless gave him a real sense of satisfaction, each of the entries offering up tiny moments of triumph. Given the mayhem of the last week, such fleeting brushes with resolution were deeply rewarding.

Still, he had yet to penetrate even one of the five-line entries, none of them coming close to anything he had seen on the computer. More than that, he had come to recognize that the last of the categories held the key to the entire puzzle. As with the acrostics, the rest remained meaningless-a mishmash of abstract phrases and words-without something to tie them together. With “Perfect Light,” it had been the prophetic letters. Here, it was the five-line entries. Another map waiting to be discovered.

An image of Angeli came to mind, her plump little hand sweeping along the sheets of yellow paper, eyes staring up at him, so eager for him to see what she herself had already detected. The elation at her discovery. Her impatience with his thickheadedness.

He couldn’t afford to keep her waiting too much longer.

At this rate, though, he had little to bolster his confidence. He had no idea as to what would help to unlock the last of the entries. He needed to clear his mind. More than that, his eyes needed a rest. The vibration from the van was hardly making the reading easy, his head still battling the last vestiges of the concussion.

He flicked off the flashlight, let the paper drop to his lap, and set his head back against the seat. After a few minutes-eyes gazing out at the blackened landscape-he said, “You’re wrong, you know.”

Not sure what Pearse was referring to, Mendravic remained silent.

“About your friends in the KLA,” he clarified.

“Ah.” Mendravic kept his eyes on the road. A return to the conversation they’d started over two hours ago.

“They’re as much to blame for the refugees now as the Serbs were a year ago.” Pearse continued to stare out.

“Five days in the region and you’re an expert.”