The Rosetta Key (26 page)

I glanced at Astiza, looking for reassurance that she despised this man, this diplomat, duelist, conjurer, scholar, and schemer. But her gaze was not of contempt but of sadness. She understood how captive we are to desire and frustration. We were dreamers in a nightmare of our own making.

We hiked to the roofless church, light picking out its rubble. There were heaps and hollows from excavation. Astiza showed me the opened stone sarcophagus where the Knight Templar’s bones had apparently been found, concealed beneath the floor.

“Silano found references to this grave in the Vatican and the libraries of Constantinople,” she said. “This knight was Michel de Troyes, who fled the arrests of the Templars in Paris and sailed for the Holy Land.”

“There was a letter that said he laid his bones with Moses,” Silano said, “and buried the secret within him. It took some time before we realized the reference meant the location must be Mount Nebo, even though the grave of Moses has never been found. I hoped to simply find the document in the knight’s grave, but didn’t.”

“You hit the bones in impatience,” Astiza said.

“Yes.” The admission of emotion was reluctant. “And a crack in his femur showed a hint of gold. A slim tube had been inserted — his leg must have been butchered and its bone hollowed after his death — and within the tube was a medieval map, the names in Latin. It points to the next step. It was then that we sent for you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a Franklin man. An electrician.”

“Electricity?”

“Is the key. I’ll explain after supper.”

By now there were twenty of us — Najac’s men, my own trio, and Silano, Astiza, and several bodyguards that Silano traveled with. Evening had come on. These servants built a fire in a corner of the church’s ruined walls and then left key members of the expedition alone. Najac sat with us, to my distaste, so I insisted Ned and Mohammad eat with us as well. Astiza knelt demurely, not at all her character, and Silano commanded the center position. We sat on sand drifting across old mosaics of Roman hunting scenes, animals rearing before spears thrust by noblemen in a forest.

“So, we are all together at last,” Silano began, the warmth of the fire making a cocoon from the cold desert sky. Sparks flew up to mingle with the stars. “Is it possible Thoth meant unions like this, to solve the riddles he left for us? Have we unwittingly been following the gods all along?”

“I believe in one true God,” Mohammad muttered.

“Aye,” said Ned, “though you’ve got the wrong one, mate. No offense.”

“As I believe in One,” Silano said, “and all things, and all beings, and all beliefs, are manifestations of his mystery. I’ve followed a thousand roads in the libraries, monasteries, and tombs of the world, and all lead toward the same center. That center is what we seek, my reluctant allies.”

“What center, master?” Najac prompted, like the trained dog he was.

Silano picked up a grain of sand. “What if I said this was the universe?”

“I’d say take it, and leave us the rest,” Ned suggested.

The count smiled thinly, threw up the grain, and caught it. “And what if I said the world around us is gossamer, as insubstantial as the spaces between a spider’s web, and all that sustains the illusion are mysterious energies we don’t understand — that this energy may be nothing more than thought itself? Or… electricity?”

“I would say that the Nile you crashed into was no spiderweb, but instead substantial enough to break your hip,” I replied.

“Illusion upon illusion. That is what some of the sacred writings maintain, all inspired by Thoth.”

“Gold is mere spider’s silk? Power grasps nothing but air?”

“Oh no. While we are but a dream, the dream is our reality. But here, then, is the secret. Let us suppose the most solid things, the stones of this church, are matrices of almost nothing. That the tumble of a boulder or the fall of a star is a simple mathematical rule. That a building can encompass the divine, a shape can be sacred, and a mind can sense unseen energies. What becomes of beings who realize this? If mountains are mere web, might not they be moved? If seas are the thinnest vapor, might not they be parted? Could the Nile become blood, or a plague of frogs spawned? How hard to tumble the walls of Jericho, when they are but a latticework? How hard to turn lead into gold when both, essentially, are dust?”

“You’re mad,” said Mohammad. “This is Satan’s talk.”

“No. I am a scholar!” And now he pushed to his feet, Najac giving him a hand that he shook off as soon as he was able. “You denied me that title once, at a banquet before Napoleon, Ethan Gage. You insulted my reputation to make me seem petty.” I reddened despite myself. The man forgot nothing. “Yet I’ve probed these mysteries for twenty years. I came to Cairo when it was still in the thrall of the Mamelukes, and explored old mysteries while you were frittering your life away. I followed the trail of the ancients while you hooked your opportunism to the French. I’ve tried to understand the enigmatic hints left behind for us, while the rest of you wrestled in the mud.” He hadn’t lost his high opinion of himself, either. “And now I understand what we’re seeking, and what we must harness to find it. We have to catch the lightning!”

“Catch what?” Ned asked dubiously.

“Gage, I understand you have succeeded in using electricity as a weapon against Bonaparte’s troops.”

“As a necessity of war.”

“I think we’re going to need Franklin’s expertise when we near the Book of Thoth. Are you electrician enough?”

“I’m a man of science, but I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“It’s why we need the seraphim, Ethan,” Astiza broke in, more softly. “We think that somehow they’re going to point to a final hiding point the Knights Templar used after destruction of their order. They brought what they’d found beneath Jerusalem to the desert and concealed it in the City of Ghosts. The documents are enigmatic, but Alessandro and I believe that Thoth, too, knew of electricity, and that the Templars set that as a test to find the book. We need to draw down the lightning like Franklin did.”

“So I agree with Mohammad. You’re both mad.”

“In the vaults beneath Jerusalem,” Silano said, “you found a curious floor, with a lightning design. And a strange door. Did you not?”

“How do you know that?” Najac, I was certain, had never penetrated to the rooms we’d explored, and had not seen Miriam’s oddly decorated door.

“I’ve been studying, as you said. And upon this Templar door you saw a Jewish pattern, did you not? The ten
sefiroth
of the kabbalah?”

“What has that to do with lightning?”

“Watch.” Bending to the dust on the floor by our fire, he drew two circles, their edges joined.

“All things are dual,” Astiza murmured.

“And yet united,” the count said. He drew another circle, as big as the first two, overlapping both. Then circles upon those circles, more upon more, the pattern becoming ever more intricate. “The prophets knew this,” he said. “Perhaps Jesus did as well. The Templars relearned it.” Then where circles intersected he began drawing lines, forming patterns: both a five-sided and a six-sided star. “The one is Egyptian and the other Jewish,” he said. “Both are equally sacred. The Egyptian star you use for your nation’s new flag. Do you not think this was the intent of the Freemasons who helped found your country?” And finally, at the interstices, he jabbed out ten points, which made the same peculiar pattern we’d seen in the Templar Hall under the Temple Mount. The
sefiroth
, Haim Farhi had called them. Once again, everyone seemed to be speaking ancient tongues I wasn’t privy too, and finding import in what I would have assumed was mere decoration.

“Recognize it?” Silano asked.

“What of it?” I said guardedly.

“The Templars drew another pattern from this design,” he said. From dot to dot he drew a zigzagging, overlapping line. “There. A lightning bolt. Eerie, is it not?”

“Maybe.”

“Not maybe. Their clues tell us to harness the sky if we wish to find where the book is. The lightning symbol is in the map we found here, and then there is the poem.”

“Poem?”

“Couplets. They’re quite eloquent.” He recited:

Aether cum radiis solis fulgore relucet
Angelus et pinnis indicat ore Dei,
Cum region deserta bibens ex murice torto
Siccatis labris arida sorbet aquas
Tum demum partem quandam lux clara revelat
Quae prius ignota est nec repute tibi
Opperiens cunctatur eum dea candida Veri
Floribus insanum qui furit atque fide

“That’s Greek to me, Silano.”

“Latin. Do they not teach the classics on the frontier, Monsieur Gage?”

“On the frontier, the classics make good fire starter.”

“The translation of this document, which I found in my travels, explains why I was anxious to make your reacquaintance:”

When heaven blazes with the lightning of the sun’s rays
And with his feathers the angel points out at God’s command
When the desert, drinking from the twisted snail shell
Thirstily sucks up water with dried-out lips
Then at last the clear light reveals a certain part
Which formerly was both unknown, nor was it cognized in your estimation
Lingering, divine bright Truth awaits him
The fool crazy for flowers, who also trusts with faith

What the devil did that mean? The world could avoid a great deal of confusion if everyone just said things straight out, but that doesn’t seem to be our habit, does it? And yet there was something about this phrasing that jarred a memory, a memory I’d never shared with either Astiza or Silano. I felt a chill of recognition.

“We must go to a special place within the City of Ghosts,” Silano said, “and call down the flames of the storm, the lightning, just as your mentor Franklin did in Philadelphia. Call it to the seraphim, and see which part they point to.”

“The part of what?”

“A building or cave, I’m guessing. It will become apparent if this works.”

“The desert drinks from a snail shell?”

“From the thunderstorm’s rain. A reference to a sacred drinking vessel, I suspect.”

Or something else, I thought to myself. “And the flowers and faith?”

“My theory is that is a reference to the Templars themselves and the Order of the Rose and Cross, or Rosicrucians. Theories of the origin of the Rosy Cross vary, but one is that the Alexandrian sage Ormus was converted to Christianity by the disciple Mark in 46 a.d. and fused its teachings with that of ancient Egypt, creating a Gnostic creed, or belief in knowledge.” He looked hard at me to make sure I’d make the connection with the Book of Thoth. “Movements fade in and out of history, but the symbol of the cross and the rose is a very old one, symbolizing death and life, or despair and hope. The Resurrection, if you will.”

“And male and female,” Astiza added, “the phallic cross and the yonic flower.”

“Flower and faith symbolize the character required of those who would find the secret,” Silano said.

“A woman?”

“Perhaps, which is one reason we have a woman along.”

I decided to keep my own suspicions to myself. “So you want to draw lightning down to my seraphim and see what happens?”

“In the place prescribed by the documents we’ve found, yes.”

I considered. “What you’re talking about is a lightning rod, or rather two, since we have two seraphim. We need metal to bring the energy down to the ground, I think.”

“Which is why our tent poles are metal, to mount your angels on. I’ve been planning this for months. You need our help to find the city, and we need your help to find the hiding place within it.”

“And then what? We cut the book in half?”

“No,” Silano said. “We don’t need Solomon to resolve our rivalry. We use it together, for mankind’s good, just as the ancients did.”

“Together!”

“Why not, when we have the power to do unlimited good? If the world’s true form is gossamer, it can be spun and shifted. That’s what this book apparently tells us how to do. And when all things are possible, stones can be shifted, lives lengthened, enemies reconciled, and wounds healed.” His eyes gleamed.

I looked at his hip. “Made young again.”

“Exactly, and in charge of a world finally run on reason.”

“Bonaparte’s reason?”

Silano glanced at Najac. “I am loyal to the government that commissioned me. And yet politicians and generals only understand so much. It is scholars who will rule the future, Ethan. The old world was the plaything of princes and priests. The new will be the responsibility of scientists. When reason and the occult are joined, a golden age will begin. Priests played that role in Egypt. We will be the priests of the future.”

“But we’re on opposite sides!”

“No, we’re not. All things are dual. And we are linked by Astiza.” His smile was meant to be seductive.

What an unholy trinity. Yet how could I accomplish anything without playing along? I looked at her. She was sitting at Silano’s side, not mine.

“She hasn’t even forgiven me,” I lied.

“I will if you help us, Ethan,” she replied. “We need you to call down fire from the sky. We need you to harness heaven, like your Benjamin Franklin.”

T
he entrance to the City of Ghosts was a slit of sandstone canyon, tight and pink as a virgin. The sinuous passageway was no wider than a room at its base, the sky a distant blue line above. The walls rose as high as six hundred feet, at times leaning in like a roof, as if closing like a crack in an earthquake. The embrace was disquieting as we walked with packs down its shadowed floor. Yet if rock can be voluptuous, this rose and blue barbican was a seraglio of rolling flesh, carved by water into a thousand sensuous forms as pleasing to the eye as a sultan’s favorite. Much of it was banded into layers of coral, gray, white, and lavender. Here rock dripped down like frozen syrup, there it puffed like frosting, and in yet another place it was a lace curtain. The sand and rock wadi formed a crude road that dipped downward toward our destination, like a causeway to some underworld in a satyr’s dream. And nature wasn’t the only sculptor here, I saw when I looked closely. This had been a caravan gate, and a channel had been carved into the canyon wall, its dark stain making clear that it had once been an aqueduct for the ancient city. We passed beneath a worn Roman arch that marked the canyon’s upper entrance and strode silently, in awe, past niches in its walls that held gods and geometric carvings. Sandstone camels, twice life-size, sauntered with us as bas-relief on the sandstone walls. It was as if the dead had been turned to stone, and when we turned the canyon’s final corner this ghostly effect was redoubled. We gasped.