The Magic Circle by Katherine Neville (top 10 books of all time txt) 📕

King Solmon was noted for, a dancing mind filled with sparkling energy. Like the salmon leaping upstream—like a leap of faith.”

My beloved! I heard the Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s echo in my mind, behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.

Dacian turned to me and put his hands on my shoulders ceremonially, almost as if bestowing an oak cluster or passing a torch. Then he looked over my shoulder at Wolfgang with an enigmatic smile.

“My dear,” he told me, “there’s only one thing for it. You’re surely going to have to learn to dance!” Then he moved into the shadows of the oncoming night.

“I just thought of something,” said Wolfgang, when Dacian left. “I was so hypnotized by the man, I almost forgot. I went back to the office while you were lunching, and there was a fax for you that had been forwarded from your office in the States. I hope it’s nothing urgent.” He reached in his pocket and handed me a folded slip of paper. I opened it under the yellow light of the streetlamp:

The first phase of our project is now completed in earnest, and the information archive for phase two is under way. Please advise how to forward future communications to you as we progress. Our team can be reached at the above number starting tomorrow.

—Yours, R. F. Burton, Quality Assurance

Sir Richard Francis Burton, indefatigable explorer and orientalist, had been one of my favorite authors as a child. I’d read everything he’d written or translated including his sixteen-volume Thousand Nights and a Night of Scheherezade. Clearly, this message was from Sam. Though I could hardly dwell on the contents while standing here under a Viennese streetlamp with Wolfgang looking on, it was a simple enough communiqué that I was quickly able to figure out a few things up front:

Phase one “completed in earnest” told me Sam had met with his grandfather, Dark Bear, on the Nez Percé reservation at Lapwai and had learned something pretty important about his father Earnest—or he’d not have taken the risk to communicate with me so overtly though I’d said he could. As for phase two: signing the message Sir Richard Burton said it all. In addition to the many books Burton had written about his treks to exotic locales like al-Medina, Mecca, and the source of the Nile, he’d also written one on his pilgrimage to “City of the Saints”—the Latter-day Saints, that is.

So the fax told me that by tomorrow this time, Sam would be checking out the rest of our family history in that other well-known salt land, America’s version of Salzburg: Salt Lake City, Utah.

THE VINEYARD

In response to an oracle of the goddess [Cybele], Dionysos learned the use of grapes from a snake. Thereupon he invented the most primitive method of making wine.

—Karl Kerenyi,

Dionysos

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

—Jesus of Nazareth, Gospel of John 15:1

And God said … I do set my rainbow in the clouds, and it shall be a token of the covenant between me and the earth.… And I will remember my covenant … and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.… And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: and he drank of the wine.

—God’s Covenant with Noah, Genesis 9:12–21

Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there I will give thee my loves.

—Song of Solomon 7:12

It was after dusk when Wolfgang and I were on the road that ran out of town along the Danube. The deep periwinkle sky was already sprinkled with a few stars; we left behind the fat yellow moon just rising over the city of Vienna.

We didn’t speak much during the trip. Though I was emotionally drained, I couldn’t close my eyes. Soon the city lights had vanished and we followed the broad, graceful sweep of river west toward the Wachau wine country. Wolfgang drove with the same gracefully timed precision he displayed when skiing, and I looked out the windows at the broad, glassy surface of the river to one side and clusters of hill villages stacked up like Hobbit houses just beside the road on the other. In less than an hour we arrived at the town of Krems, where Wolfgang’s office was located.

By now the moon was high, bathing the surrounding hills in light. We took the branch off the main road uphill into the charming walled town of Krems with its interesting assortment of whitewashed buildings whose potpourri of styles could be picked out in the bright moonlight: Renaissance, Gothic, Baroque, Romanesque. We passed through the town and the Höher Markt with its square of country palaces and museums, but to my surprise Wolfgang headed out of town once more on a narrower, winding road that led up into the open hill country, thick with vineyards, high above the village. I glanced at his profile, outlined by the dull green glow of the dash lights.

“I thought the plan was to drop by your office the very first thing, to go over tomorrow’s agenda,” I said.

“Yes, but my office is in my home,” Wolfgang explained, his eyes still on the road ahead. “It isn’t far, only a few kilometers more. We’ll be there at any moment.”

The road had now become narrower and seemed to be running out of pavement as we continued up the steep hill that led farther and farther from the river and its small pockets of habitation. We passed a tiny thatched mud shed that was built into the hill beside the road, the kind where grape pickers store baskets and tools, and take shelter during those sudden drenching rains so common here in the hill country. Beyond it, there was nothing suggesting civilization—except, of course, row after row of grapevines under cultivation.

When we reached the hilltop,