A Matter of Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 1) by Ichabod Temperance Page A

nature, but it relates to one who seeks Utnapishtim?”
    A few moments of silence follows, then, we hear the sound of a chain disengaging, and the door opens. Yet, as we step into the tiny foyer, we still see little more of our host than shadow. “One test remains, Miss Plumtartt. Even were it Gilgamesh himself who stood before me, he should be required to submit.”
    He waits for my reply.
    Sensing no malice from the man (nor, thank Heavens, any green miasma), I accede, whereupon he passes a small crystal in front of Mr. Temperance. I cannot tell its color in the near-darkness, but it begins to glow a sunny gold as the scholar tests my companion. Apparently satisfied, he passes the crystal in front of me.
    Iridescent crimson light fills the air! In the eerie light, I see his hands shake violently, causing him to lose his grip on the crystal. What can it mean? Have I failed?
    “You...have come. It was inevitable, I suppose. You have brought...the scroll?”
    He lights a small lamp, and then a second one. The room, comprising a typical scholar’s farrago of scrolls, codices, inkstands, and various odd specimens in glass jars, reminds me strangely of my mother’s old studio. Mountains of books grow in precarious pillars about the room as the shelves are far past overflowing.
    I nod to Mr. Temperance.
    “Lemme loosen one end of the tube, sir.” Mr. Temperance says producing a matched brace of adjustable ’Simian' spanners from his constant tool supply. Breaking the tightly cinched seal, and he then hands the lead pipe containing the scroll to Mr. Bin-Jamin. Something moves me to speak:
    “Sir, I should be careful in touching it. I confess I cannot abide to do so.”
    “Indeed, you could not. It is inimical to your very nature. No child of the Light could hold this particular text without taking certain precautions.” Mr. Bin-Jamin slips two oddly-embroidered gloves onto his hands, and clamps a thickly-lensed pince-nez onto his nose. He handles the dread document with two thin rods of wood. Holding the sticks in one hand and using them in conjunction with one another, the old scholar manages the pair of sticks with amazing dexterity in the Auriental manner of food utensils.
    He points to two chairs by the window. “Please be seated. I fear I know what I shall find...but I must have total quiet for concentration. With such things, one must be absolutely sure.”
    Mr. Temperance and I wait for several minutes while the elderly scholar reads through the nauseous scroll. He appears to be making his way through the incomprehensible scratchings with surprising speed, given his obvious caution. Impelled by a morbid curiosity, I look at the document from time to time with growing unease; somehow, the convoluted symbols strike a chord of memory deep with me. A memory that I do not wish to remember. As we wait, the storm continues to increase with intensity as it makes its approach on the City of Light. The ancient apartment vibrates with the reverberation of the thunderclaps, which grow closer, and more frequent.
    At last, the old scholar speaks.
    “It is as I feared, my child.”
    “The text your family has guarded for so long...we had always assumed it to be a translation into Arabic, or perhaps, at worst, Sumerian. If it were, things would be less dire. With every subsequent translation, more and more of the original text was lost, you see, but this is no translation.”
    “The document I now hold is the original Eye of the Forbidden Gate!”
    The Eye of the Forbidden Gate!
    That name! A frisson of atavistic fear runs through my body.
    I have heard rumors of a text stored in a small, North American university, supposed to be the remnants of a medieval-era Arabic translation of a Sumerian grimoire, but its provenance has always been dubious. Yet when Mr. Bin-Jamin mentions the name, I feel a strong shock of recognition that this lies at the root of the evil currently besetting Northern Europe.
    “Sir, the... original Eye