Circles of Seven by Bryan Davis Page A

seconds the design became clearer, an eight-pointed compass with narrow spires stretching northeast, east, southeast, south, and so on. At the end of each spire, a basketball-sized circle enclosed an illustration.
    Patrick knelt and blew the debris away from the lines in the northeast circle. He set the oil lamp at the edge and nodded at the image. “The creation of man.”
    The simple etching displayed a man and a woman standing with a fruit-filled tree between them, and in the midst of the tree a miniature dragon perched on a branch, his eyes focused directly on the woman. At the edge of the circle, a string of strange words lined the inside of the arc. Billy squinted at the words. They seemed indecipherable, though some resembled English.
    The professor stood at his side. “It’s Latin, William. It says, ‘In principio erat verbum et verbum erat apud deum et deus erat verbum,’ which means, ‘In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.’”
    Bonnie knelt and rubbed her fingers across the impression, pausing briefly on the woman’s bare back. She looked up at Patrick. “Adam and Eve before the Fall?”
    Sir Patrick nodded. “True innocence—undefiled, without even the memory of sin. You might even call it a holy naïveté.” He walked over to the eastern spire. “You could learn a great deal by analyzing these in depth, but we can’t afford to take the time. I’ll just show you each one as we make our way around the compass.” He stooped and blew the dust away from the circle, revealing two swords crossed in battle and under the swords, a bag of spilled coins. Two of the coins carried tiny portraits, one with a crown on his head and the other with long, flowing hair.
    Billy and company followed Patrick from circle to circle. The southeast point held a drawing of two men, one taller than the other. The shorter man carried an axe with the sharp edge positioned at the taller man’s heels. The taller man held a mirror, and he gazed at himself, apparently unaware of the shorter man’s actions. Within the mirror, the reflection showed the face of a dragon.
    Patrick walked by the southern circle, waving at it as he passed. “This one is best left covered. I have not cleared debris from it since I first viewed its image, and I shall not describe it to you. But I will tell you that it represents one of the deadliest enemies of men, and I mean ‘men’ in the gender sense, not as in ‘mankind.’”
    Billy paused at the edge of the circle’s muddy covering. Years of dirt and rotted leaves had mixed with rain from the open ceiling. He swiped a bit of the mud away with his shoe, but all he could see was a bare foot in the dim light. He leaped past it and hurried on.
    On the southwest circle, Patrick pointed out a feast scene, a rack of meat over a fire next to a table covered with piles of indistinguishable fruits and vegetables, yet only a single man sat at the table’s bounty while a child knelt begging at his feet.
    The circle on the west side needed only a quick sweep to reveal a clear etching. A dragon spewed a stream of flames at a male figure so small that he seemed to be a child. The boy carried a short, thin sword, useless and pathetic against the monstrous dragon. A girl sat close by, watching the battle.
    Billy shivered. He knew the image carried a profound message, yet he couldn’t figure out what it was. He just wanted to move on.
    When they reached the northwest point, Patrick pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and scraped away a thick layer of damp silt. The smudged drawing showed a bridge spanning two mountains with a valley underneath. There was little detail, only the bare cliff walls and a valley floor teeming with a mass of haunting, forlorn faces intermixed with tiny, winged creatures.
    Finally, at the north end of the compass, Patrick placed the lantern at the circle’s edge. Most of the debris had already been cleared, and when the professor